Al­though Fri­day’s cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Par­lia­ment sim­ply sounds the open­ing whis­tle to sig­nal the start of a new ses­sion, there is every in­di­ca­tion that the forth­com­ing leg­isla­tive agen­da has the po­ten­tial to keep mem­bers in­tense­ly en­gaged – es­pe­cial­ly if we were to take se­ri­ous­ly the an­nounced tran­si­tion of elec­tion “minifestoes” to of­fi­cial pol­i­cy.

It is, how­ev­er, al­so true that not every Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) cam­paign wish means an amend­ed law or a new one. Here are three is­sues of leg­isla­tive rel­e­vance that should not need­less­ly cram the par­lia­men­tary sched­ule.

For ex­am­ple, en­force­ment of the Noise Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Rules un­der the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act, more dili­gent en­force­ment of the “pub­lic nui­sance” fea­ture of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, and res­ur­rec­tion of the Ex­plo­sives (Pro­hi­bi­tion of Scratch Bombs) Or­der 2018 can tell us you are se­ri­ous about ad­dress­ing harm­ful, dis­rup­tive noise.

What is need­ed here is strin­gent ap­pli­ca­tion of ex­ist­ing laws and reg­u­la­tions. Yes, there can be some tweak­ing here and there, but we re­al­ly have enough am­mo to deal with this.

This would leave space for ad­dress­ing touch­i­er is­sues such as the strik­ing anom­aly of equal op­por­tu­ni­ty leg­is­la­tion which okays dis­crim­i­na­tion against peo­ple based on “sex­u­al pref­er­ence or ori­en­ta­tion.” Em­ploy­ers, land­lords, schools, and ser­vice providers can­not be pros­e­cut­ed and pun­ished on such grounds un­der this law.

It is my un­der­stand­ing that a suit­able amend­ment is al­ready avail­able, and groups such as CAISO, Pride TT and oth­ers have peo­ple with the knowl­edge and ex­per­tise to lend a hand in this mat­ter. So, easy-peasy, lit­tle time and ef­fort are need­ed to get this one done.

Then comes the more vex­ing, com­pli­cat­ed is­sue of mis­man­age­ment in the han­dling of im­mi­gra­tion mat­ters. Hope­ful­ly, Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has bus­ied him­self with the minute de­tails re­gard­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive tar­di­ness in this huge­ly im­por­tant area, and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is aware of the rel­e­vant in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights land­scape.

For ex­am­ple, what could pos­si­bly take decades to man­age res­i­den­cy pe­ti­tions? Why has the pro­cess­ing of asy­lum-seek­ers here not been guid­ed by prop­er refugee pol­i­cy and is not ful­ly com­pli­ant with in­ter­na­tion­al law? On the lat­ter point, the UNC has had much to say in re­cent times, fol­low­ing ear­ly ill-ad­vised re­sis­tance. Hope­ful­ly, we will not fol­low the ex­am­ple of oth­ers who have cho­sen to open­ly ig­nore some ba­sic prin­ci­ples of in­ter­na­tion­al law as­so­ci­at­ed with ac­com­mo­dat­ing peo­ple claim­ing to es­cape op­pres­sive con­di­tions in their home coun­tries.

Of the 37,906 refugees and asy­lum-seek­ers reg­is­tered by the UN­HCR in T&T, more than 86% are from Venezuela. The oth­er 14%, from over 38 coun­tries over the years, al­so re­quire at­ten­tion. Let’s not for­get them.

The fig­ure of 100,000 un­doc­u­ment­ed im­mi­grants - snatched out of thin, spec­u­la­tive air by nu­mer­ous com­men­ta­tors and even some learned re­searchers - may or may not be ac­cu­rate. Not all ar­rivals have reg­is­tered. But it has be­come fash­ion­able to pro­mote neg­a­tive nar­ra­tives re­gard­ing the ubiq­ui­tous pres­ence of Venezue­lans here by em­ploy­ing such guessti­mates and the con­se­quen­tial re­al­i­ty of an “in­va­sion” or un­man­age­able “in­flux.”

There is al­so the fact that close to 1,400 chil­dren have been born to reg­is­tered asy­lum-seek­ers and refugees in T&T since 2018/2019. As far as I am aware, we are one of those coun­tries in which un­con­di­tion­al “birthright cit­i­zen­ship” (jus soli) is ob­served. The re­luc­tance to in­te­grate these chil­dren in­to our school sys­tem has been one of the gross in­jus­tices of re­cent years.

Last year, the par­ents of on­ly 148 chil­dren ap­plied to at­tend pub­lic school and just 60 were ac­com­mo­dat­ed. This is one cam­paign promise a la “minifesto - the in­te­gra­tion of Venezue­lan mi­grants” - that al­so does not re­quire too much par­lia­men­tary time to im­ple­ment.

It is, how­ev­er, a mul­ti­fac­eted im­per­a­tive that sees sev­er­al arms of gov­ern­ment be­com­ing si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly en­gaged.

This in­cludes im­mi­gra­tion, health, ed­u­ca­tion, so­cial ser­vices and oth­ers. For those with “jus soli” sta­tus, our clever le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty must sure­ly be en­gaged in prepar­ing path­ways for ap­pli­ca­tion of the rights of these chil­dren, if not un­der the UN Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child.

There are al­so thou­sands of adult Venezue­lans cur­rent­ly in ner­vous pos­ses­sion of ex­pired per­mits hop­ing to ben­e­fit from a new, more en­light­ened, reg­u­la­to­ry regime.

These are on­ly three of the burn­ing is­sues that can be ad­dressed with­in a rel­a­tive­ly short pe­ri­od of time and are most­ly in keep­ing with the spir­it of elec­tion cam­paign promis­es/de­c­la­ra­tions.

While the pub­lic wish list is much longer than these three ar­eas, the ad­van­tage of new­ness should be ap­plied to get them out of the way quick­ly.