I have re­searched the laws per­tain­ing to the pro­hi­bi­tion of cam­ou­flage cloth­ing, with the as­sis­tance of the par­lia­men­tary li­brary. The rel­e­vant Acts are De­fence Act Ch 14:01 Sec­tion 219, and the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act Ch: 11.02 Sec­tion 98 (1) and (3).

Both these sec­tions re­fer to a non-mem­ber of the De­fence Force wear­ing "the uni­form or any por­tion of the uni­forms of a mem­ber of the De­fence Force...or any dress hav­ing the ap­pear­ance or bear­ing any of the reg­i­men­tal or oth­er dis­tinc­tive marks of any such uni­form."

On my read­ing, the Acts do not pro­hib­it the pos­ses­sion of any uni­form or any part there­of and I have found no au­thor­i­ty for the Cus­toms' prac­tice of con­fis­cat­ing in­no­cent pieces of cloth­ing-a tod­dler's cap or even a ted­dy bear, or a piece of lug­gage bear­ing cam­ou­flage mark­ings.

A news­pa­per sto­ry of June 30, 2010 by Alexan­der Bruzual fur­ther re­lates that Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Mur­ray up­held the sub­mis­sion of Dale Marthis that his pos­ses­sion of cam­ou­flage pants and jack­et were not con­trary to the De­fence Force Act. For the ben­e­fit of read­ers, I quote the full Sec­tion 219 to con­vey the true in­tent of the Act:

"A per­son, oth­er than a mem­ber of the De­fence Force, who with­out law­ful ex­cuse (the proof where­of shall lie on him)-(a) wears the uni­form or any por­tion of the uni­forms of a mem­ber of the De­fence Force; or (b) wears any cos­tume or any ar­ti­cle of cloth­ing or ap­par­el so close­ly re­sem­bling the uni­form or any por­tion there­of of a mem­ber of the De­fence Force, as may cause such per­son to be mis­tak­en for a mem­ber of the De­fence Force, is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of one thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for eigh­teen months."

Un­less the Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms could pro­vide ad­di­tion­al clar­i­fi­ca­tion, cus­toms' of­fi­cers at Pi­ar­co should stop the fu­tile fuss­ing.

Michael J Williams

Mara­cas, St Joseph