Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie has ro­bust­ly de­fend­ed Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill in the Sen­ate, re­ject­ing claims that the leg­is­la­tion is root­ed in racism or re­sem­bles apartheid and in­sist­ing that any lim­i­ta­tions on in­di­vid­ual rights are jus­ti­fied by the threat posed by vi­o­lent crime and gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

Lead­ing de­bate on the bill yes­ter­day, Je­re­mie re­spond­ed di­rect­ly to crit­i­cisms raised dur­ing its pas­sage through the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, in­clud­ing com­par­isons be­tween the pro­posed law and South Africa’s for­mer apartheid sys­tem.

He said the is­sue went be­yond or­di­nary po­lit­i­cal dis­agree­ment and touched on some of the coun­try’s most painful his­tor­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ences.

“I would nev­er of my own ac­cord in­tro­duce race or racism in­to this cham­ber. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there are in­sults that die with the mo­ment, but there are some words that sum­mon our his­to­ry,” he told the cham­ber.

Ad­dress­ing the apartheid com­par­i­son, Je­re­mie ar­gued that the anal­o­gy was both in­ap­pro­pri­ate and of­fen­sive in a de­bate cen­tred on pub­lic safe­ty.

“The mem­ber had the temer­i­ty to in­voke apartheid in­to a de­bate that deals with fun­da­men­tal­ly pro­tect­ing the rights of Black peo­ple to safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and a long and pros­per­ous life,” he said.

He added: “Apartheid was racial seg­re­ga­tion. To in­voke that his­to­ry here while our black chil­dren are be­ing slaugh­tered in the streets is not care­less rhetoric and we must ex­am­ine.”

While Je­re­mie did not name the mem­ber he was re­fer­ring to, Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young had ar­gued ear­li­er this week that pro­vi­sions reg­u­lat­ing move­ment with­in des­ig­nat­ed closed ar­eas could se­ri­ous­ly re­strict cit­i­zens’ free­doms. Young de­scribed the leg­is­la­tion as “akin to apartheid.”

The AG’s com­ments came amid grow­ing con­tro­ver­sy over the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing state­ments that spe­cial op­er­a­tions would be con­cen­trat­ed in se­lect­ed com­mu­ni­ties.

Yes­ter­day, Je­re­mie said the leg­is­la­tion forms part of the Gov­ern­ment’s broad­er strat­e­gy to dis­man­tle gangs, curb the il­le­gal drug trade and re­duce vi­o­lent crime.

“If you are in­volved in the traf­fick­ing of nar­cotics, the mes­sage is sim­ple. I am ask­ing you to quit while you are ahead. The Gov­ern­ment is not go­ing to stop in its at­tack against you,” he de­clared.

He added, “The Gov­ern­ment like­wise is not go­ing to stop in its at­tack against gangs and gang vi­o­lence.”

Je­re­mie ac­knowl­edged that some con­sti­tu­tion­al rights could be af­fect­ed by the bill but main­tained the pro­posed mea­sures are legal­ly de­fen­si­ble and pro­por­tion­ate.

“We have ex­am­ined the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty, tak­en ad­vice on it and, in our con­sid­ered view, in the in­ter­est of the se­cu­ri­ty, peace and or­der of our so­ci­ety, the rel­e­vant in­di­vid­ual rights may be in­fringed by cer­tain pro­posed mea­sures that are pro­por­tion­ate,” he said.

He ar­gued that the leg­is­la­tion does not re­quire a spe­cial par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty and has been struc­tured to com­ply with con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ments. He al­so point­ed to le­gal de­vel­op­ments in Ja­maica and St Lu­cia as part of the foun­da­tion for the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach.

Ac­cord­ing to Je­re­mie, the bill is de­signed as a tar­get­ed crime-fight­ing tool rather than a sub­sti­tute for a state of emer­gency.

“While the bill gives se­cu­ri­ty forces spe­cial pow­ers, it is de­signed to be a lim­it­ed and tem­po­rary mea­sure dis­tinct from a state of emer­gency,” he said.

The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would es­tab­lish sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts across Trinidad and To­ba­go. With­in those dis­tricts, au­thor­i­ties could des­ig­nate “closed ar­eas” where es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lent crime, gang ac­tiv­i­ty, il­le­gal weapons or gang in­tim­i­da­tion threat­en pub­lic safe­ty. The bill would al­low en­hanced law-en­force­ment mea­sures in those ar­eas, in­clud­ing cor­dons, road­blocks, cur­fews and re­stric­tions on move­ment, in­clud­ing need­ing a per­mit for en­try in­to and ex­it from closed ar­eas.

Je­re­mie said the leg­is­la­tion con­tains over­sight mea­sures, in­clud­ing re­port­ing re­quire­ments to the Prime Min­is­ter and the min­is­ters re­spon­si­ble for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. He said these safe­guards, to­geth­er with the tem­po­rary na­ture of the pow­ers, dis­tin­guish the bill from the broad­er pow­ers avail­able un­der a SoE.

How­ev­er, Al-Rawi de­scribed the leg­is­la­tion as “dra­mat­i­cal­ly un­con­sti­tu­tion­al,” rais­ing con­cerns about the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, the role of the Prime Min­is­ter and the scope of au­thor­i­ty grant­ed to law-en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

Among his ob­jec­tions is a pro­vi­sion that could al­low the Prime Min­is­ter to in­flu­ence who com­mands a spe­cial op­er­a­tion.

“Why on the Lord’s earth, good as it is, would we wish, in light of re­cent events, to in­clude a po­lice­man or a mem­ber of the De­fence Force who is vet­ted and ap­proved and liked by a Prime Min­is­ter?

“Where did that come from? Haven’t we just re­cent­ly come out of a State of Emer­gency?” he asked.

Al-Rawi ar­gued that such au­thor­i­ty should not rest with a po­lit­i­cal of­fice­hold­er out­side the frame­work of a SoE.

He al­so ques­tioned the bill’s ar­rest and search pro­vi­sions, con­tend­ing they con­flict with ex­ist­ing le­gal pro­tec­tions and raise what he de­scribed as “deep con­sti­tu­tion­al wor­ry” be­cause of the sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on cit­i­zens’ lib­er­ty and free­dom of move­ment.

He said Gov­ern­ment’s stat­ed in­ten­tion to de­ploy spe­cial op­er­a­tions on­ly in UNC-held se­lect­ed ar­eas, Al-Rawi warned of un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences.

“They are say­ing, most re­spect­ful­ly, that the law will be such that it will ap­ply on­ly in the UNC ar­eas and UNC mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties from lo­cal gov­ern­ment. So what does that mean? Doesn’t it mean that there’ll be a mi­gra­tion of crim­i­nal­i­ty to the ar­eas where it’s not go­ing to be en­forced?” he asked.