Camille Clarke

Di­rec­tor of the Pub­lic Af­fairs Unit of the Po­lice Ser­vice, Sharon Lee As­sang, says the ser­vice is now seek­ing le­gal ad­vice af­ter com­plaints that cit­i­zens were ar­rest­ed while on their premis­es dur­ing cur­few hours. "We have been speak­ing with le­gal coun­sel who will clar­i­fy the state of emer­gency reg­u­la­tions on peo­ple be­ing ar­rest­ed on their premis­es dur­ing the cur­few," Lee As­sang said. She was com­ment­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day's dai­ly po­lice news con­fer­ence at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain. The Emer­gency Pow­er Reg­u­la­tions Sec­tion 4, 1c "pro­hibits any per­son be­ing out of doors be­tween such hours as may be spec­i­fied, ex­cept un­der the au­thor­i­ty of a writ­ten per­mit grant­ed by such au­thor­i­ty or per­sons as may be spec­i­fied."

Lee As­sang added: "We will wait to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion and lat­er to­day we will have a res­o­lu­tion. This we will treat ex­pe­di­tious­ly. "Giv­en the pub­lic con­cerns we have re­ferred the mat­ter to the le­gal de­part­ment and it will make a de­ter­mi­na­tion." Mean­while, As­sang re-it­er­at­ed it was il­le­gal to use fire­works dur­ing the state of emer­gency. She said: "If any­one is host­ing any events, fire­works is clas­si­fied as an ex­plo­sive and it is an of­fence." As­sang said cit­i­zens should be aware of the act which pre­vent­ed that in light of to­day's Di­vali hol­i­day. "Any­one who is de­sirous of host­ing events needs to draw ref­er­ence to the act," Lee As­sang said.

The Ex­plo­sives Act can be checked on­line un­der Chap­ter 16.02, Sec­tion 2.