Derek Achong

An an­i­mal rights ac­tivist is con­sid­er­ing fil­ing a law­suit over the abil­i­ty of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to ap­prove fire­works dis­plays in Port-of-Spain and oth­er ma­jor towns across T&T, with a spe­cif­ic view to chal­leng­ing planned fire­works dis­plays for In­de­pen­dence Day. 

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Maris­sa Ram­nath sig­nalled her in­ten­tion in a let­ter sent to act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

In the let­ter, Ram­nath’s lawyer Kiel Tak­lals­ingh point­ed to Sec­tion 99 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, which cre­ates an of­fence for dis­charg­ing fire­works in a city or town ex­cept in ac­cor­dance with as­so­ci­at­ed reg­u­la­tions from the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. 

Sec­tion 101 of the leg­is­la­tion em­pow­ers the min­is­ter with the au­thor­i­ty to pre­scribe the reg­u­la­tions which dic­tate the times, places and con­di­tions un­der which fire­works may be let off in ur­ban ar­eas. 

Tak­lals­ingh not­ed that while reg­u­la­tions were cre­at­ed pur­suant to the leg­is­la­tion, they did not pre­scribe the “places” and “con­di­tions” and in­stead del­e­gat­ed a pow­er to grant per­mis­sion for fire­work dis­plays to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er. 

“Re­spect­ful­ly, the Min­is­ter’s statu­to­ry du­ty to pre­scribe the times, places, and con­di­tions for the use of fire­works are in­alien­able and can­not be sur­ren­dered to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice,” Tak­lals­ingh said. 
“To do so would be to un­law­ful­ly fet­ter his dis­cre­tion,” he added. 

In the let­ter, Tak­lals­ingh sought to reg­is­ter his client’s ve­he­ment ob­jec­tion to any grant­i­ng of per­mis­sion, es­pe­cial­ly for up­com­ing In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain. 

He claimed that Ram­nath, who has helped fi­nance the con­struc­tion and op­er­a­tions of sev­er­al an­i­mal shel­ters, was es­pe­cial­ly con­cerned about the ef­fect of fire­works on house­hold pets and an­i­mals at the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo. 

“My client is of the view that the use of fire­works con­sti­tutes abuse and mal­treat­ment of an­i­mals and there­fore its use in such close prox­im­i­ty to the zoo should not be per­mit­ted,” Tak­lals­ingh said. 
He al­so point­ed to the fact that the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah is lo­cat­ed in close prox­im­i­ty to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. 

“The use of fire­works and loud nois­es may neg­a­tive­ly af­fect per­sons who are ill and/or who may be re­cov­er­ing from ill­ness,” he said. 

He al­so sug­gest­ed that Ja­cob should al­so con­sid­er the is­sue with the reg­u­la­tions, which may be the sub­ject of an even­tu­al law­suit.

In the let­ter, Tak­lals­ingh called on Ja­cob to in­form his client of any ap­pli­ca­tion he re­ceives so she can re­spond to it. He al­so re­quest­ed that Ja­cob pro­vide writ­ten rea­sons if he still de­cides to grant per­mis­sion. 

Last year, Ram­nath, through her le­gal team, wrote to for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al and cur­rent Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi over de­lays in pro­claim­ing the An­i­mals (Dis­eases and Im­por­ta­tion) (Amend­ment) Act 2020. 

The leg­is­la­tion sought to ad­dress cru­el­ty to­wards an­i­mals, which were not cov­ered by ex­ist­ing an­i­mal cru­el­ty laws that on­ly deal with do­mes­ti­cat­ed an­i­mals such as dogs, cats, cows, sheep, and goats. The leg­is­la­tion was sub­se­quent­ly pro­claimed. 

In Jan­u­ary, Al-Rawi pro­posed new leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late the use of fire­works, in­clud­ing lim­it­ing its use on pub­lic hol­i­days and for New Year cel­e­bra­tions on De­cem­ber 31. Pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions are ex­pect­ed be­fore the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion is con­sid­ered by Par­lia­ment. 
Ram­nath is al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Ste­fan Ramkissoon and Rhea Khan.