Is­rael B Ra­jah-Khan SC,

Pres­i­dent Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion

This is an open let­ter call­ing up­on all the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to vote in sup­port of the Law Re­port (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tion) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Bill Mea­sures) Bill 2026 in or­der to grant the Gov­ern­ment, at least, a fight­ing chance to curb the es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lent crimes which have been plagu­ing the coun­try for the past few decades.

The great ma­jor­i­ty of the peo­ple of T&T are in sup­port of this piece of pro­posed leg­is­la­tion: the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, and or­di­nary law-abid­ing cit­i­zens are anx­ious­ly watch­ing and wait­ing with bat­ed breath to see whether the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors will grant the Gov­ern­ment that fight­ing chance to curb the es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lent crimes in our coun­try.

It is of in­ter­est to note that se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah told the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian on Jan­u­ary 16, the fol­low­ing:

“The ZOSOs are not mere­ly en­force­ment tools but they are al­so sta­bil­i­ty mech­a­nisms de­signed to re­store con­fi­dence, or­der and eco­nom­ic con­ti­nu­ity. When law en­force­ment es­tab­lish­es and sus­tains 360-de­gree over­watch across com­mer­cial and eco­nom­ic cor­ri­dors, the im­me­di­ate and long-term ben­e­fits to busi­ness are clear: re­duced crim­i­nal free­dom of move­ment, dis­rup­tion of or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works, and the cre­ation of pre­dictable op­er­a­tion en­vi­ron­ment. High vis­i­bil­i­ty pa­trols, in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions, and per­sis­tent pres­sure sup­press crimes not by chance but by de­sign.”

And Robert Le Hunte, in his com­men­tary in the Sun­day Ex­press of Jan­u­ary16th, 2026 stat­ed the fol­low­ing:

“The bill re­places the broad state of emer­gency with ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed zones of spe­cial op­er­a­tions, in­tend­ed to al­low firm, fo­cused en­force­ment in com­mu­ni­ties ex­pe­ri­enc­ing per­sis­tent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. The ne­ces­si­ty of de­ci­sive ac­tion is not in dis­pute. Vi­o­lent crime has reached un­ac­cept­able lev­els, and the state has a du­ty to pro­tect its cit­i­zens.”

He added that crime is not re­duced sus­tain­ably by polic­ing alone. It falls when com­mu­ni­ties are sta­bilised, op­por­tu­ni­ties are ex­pand­ed, and le­git­i­ma­cy is re­stored. To its cred­it, the bill recog­nis­es this re­al­i­ty. Be­yond en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty pow­ers, it ex­plic­it­ly pro­vides for so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, youth di­ver­sion and com­mu­ni­ty up­lift through a So­cial Trans­for­ma­tion Com­mit­tee. In prin­ci­ple, this is the ar­chi­tec­ture.

And it is of in­ter­est to note that Le Hunte was a for­mer front­line cab­i­net min­is­ter of a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment and still a high-rank­ing mem­ber of the PNM par­ty; and he is in sup­port of this bill. Yes, coun­try first, be­fore par­ty.

And it is im­por­tant to note that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, who pi­lot­ed the bill in Par­lia­ment, in­formed the coun­try that ecosys­tems were em­bed­ded and op­er­at­ing with­in spe­cif­ic ge­o­graph­ic ar­eas through­out T&T. And the po­lice had iden­ti­fied high­er con­cen­tra­tions of se­ri­ous crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty clus­tered with­in par­tic­u­lar cor­ri­dors and com­mu­ni­ties.

And I now com­mend the above-stat­ed for our nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to con­sid­er when de­cid­ing whether they will sup­port the bill. I re­mind the good­ly sen­a­tors that per­haps while they may vote in a Gen­er­al Elec­tion for the PNM par­ty or the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) par­ty, they are not un­der the whip of ei­ther par­ty. And as Le Hunte stat­ed in his com­men­tary, “In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors were ap­point­ed not to echo po­lit­i­cal pres­sure, but to ex­er­cise in­de­pen­dent judge­ment. Their du­ty is to weigh le­gal­i­ty, pro­por­tion­al­i­ty, moral­i­ty and long-term con­se­quences.”

And he warned that each in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor would ul­ti­mate­ly live with the de­ci­sion made and the sig­nal sent – not on­ly to crim­i­nals, but to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens in com­mu­ni­ties al­ready strug­gling for dig­ni­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty.

I wish al­so to give a re­spect­ful warn­ing to all nine sen­a­tors on this volatile is­sue of vot­ing for or against the ZOSO Bill. Hav­ing re­gard to the im­por­tant sig­nif­i­cance of this bill, when all is said and done by you the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, each one must ei­ther vote for or against the bill: You can­not talk your talk in Par­lia­ment and then ab­stain from vot­ing on the bill. If you ab­stain from vot­ing, then you would have ab­di­cat­ed your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple of the coun­try, and thus the Pres­i­dent should im­me­di­ate­ly re­move you from the Sen­ate.

So, my good­ly in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, you can­not talk your talk in Par­lia­ment and not vote for or against the bill: You will be a mock­ing pre­tender if your over­all pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment favours the bill or is against the bill and when you are called up­on to cast your vote, you ab­stain.

Fi­nal­ly, I sin­cere­ly hope that all nine sen­a­tors will sup­port this bill to be en­act­ed in­to law.