The rule of law is a cor­ner­stone of any de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety. It rests on the prin­ci­ple that no one is above the law and that all cit­i­zens are en­ti­tled to equal treat­ment re­gard­less of race, sta­tus, gen­der or po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, Sec­tions 4 and 5 of the Con­sti­tu­tion guar­an­tee fun­da­men­tal rights and free­doms, while the le­gal and ju­di­cial sys­tem ex­ists to safe­guard them.

The Con­sti­tu­tion al­so recog­nis­es that ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances may re­quire tem­po­rary re­stric­tions. Sec­tions 8 to 12 al­low for the qual­i­fied sus­pen­sion of cer­tain free­doms dur­ing a state of emer­gency. How­ev­er, even in such pe­ri­ods, the rule of law does not dis­ap­pear. Ac­tions tak­en by state au­thor­i­ties, in­clud­ing pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders, re­main sub­ject to ju­di­cial over­sight to en­sure they are law­ful, rea­son­able and ex­er­cised in good faith.

Re­cent events have placed these prin­ci­ples un­der in­tense pub­lic scruti­ny. The de­ten­tion of mem­bers of the Hadeed fam­i­ly, the ar­rest of an ac­tivist dur­ing Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions on June 19, re­stric­tions on protest ac­tiv­i­ty, in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­volv­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties and the ar­rest of Joshua Sama­roo’s fa­ther have fu­elled pub­lic de­bate. The is­sues ex­tend be­yond the in­di­vid­u­als in­volved. They raise broad­er ques­tions about equal­i­ty be­fore the law, the ex­er­cise of state pow­er and the ef­fec­tive­ness of in­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards.

There are, of course, spe­cif­ic le­gal ques­tions that must be re­solved by the courts. These in­clude the le­gal­i­ty of the de­ten­tion or­ders, the con­duct of state of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing the min­is­ter, po­lice of­fi­cers and the PDO tri­bunal, and whether the ac­tions tak­en were jus­ti­fied. The Privy Coun­cil’s han­dling to date of the mat­ter and the im­me­di­ate re­lease of the Hadeeds have on­ly in­ten­si­fied pub­lic con­cern. What­ev­er the out­come, tax­pay­ers will ul­ti­mate­ly bear the cost of the le­gal pro­ceed­ings.

The wider im­pli­ca­tions may be more sig­nif­i­cant. Pub­lic con­fi­dence in three crit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Ex­ec­u­tive and the Ju­di­cia­ry, has been af­fect­ed.

Trust in the po­lice has al­ready been strained by con­tro­ver­sies such as the Er­la Christo­pher mat­ter and that in­volv­ing Brent Thomas, which a judge de­scribed as a kid­nap­ping. If a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice could see her rights chal­lenged in such cir­cum­stances, many cit­i­zens will nat­u­ral­ly won­der about their own vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Ques­tions about the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of po­lice in­tel­li­gence have be­come a re­cur­ring fea­ture of these con­tro­ver­sies.

The pub­lic is al­so en­ti­tled to ask whether state­ments by state of­fi­cials re­in­force the per­cep­tion that the law and law-en­force­ment agen­cies are be­ing used for fish­ing ex­pe­di­tions or, worse, as tools of in­tim­i­da­tion. Sim­i­lar­ly, the de­ci­sion to en­gage cost­ly lo­cal and for­eign se­nior coun­sel cre­ates the im­pres­sion that per­son­al­i­ties, rather than prin­ci­ple, may have in­flu­enced de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has ex­pe­ri­enced states of emer­gency be­fore, as well as al­le­ga­tions of plots against the State. Such sit­u­a­tions test the judge­ment of those en­trust­ed with au­thor­i­ty. Pub­lic of­fi­cials have a du­ty to ex­er­cise their pow­ers re­spon­si­bly, care­ful­ly and with­in the lim­its of the law. Mis­use of those pow­ers risks un­der­min­ing con­fi­dence in the very in­sti­tu­tions they serve.

In the end, the is­sue is not pol­i­tics, per­son­al­i­ties or PDOs. It is ac­count­abil­i­ty. In a so­ci­ety gov­erned by the rule of law, every­one must an­swer for their ac­tions, es­pe­cial­ly those who hold pub­lic of­fice. No one is above the law.