Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Sen­ate has passed leg­is­la­tion that will ex­pand the State's pow­ers to col­lect DNA sam­ples with­out con­sent from in­di­vid­u­als who pose spe­cif­ic, high-lev­el na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or counter-ter­ror­ism risks up­on en­ter­ing or re-en­ter­ing the coun­try.

The Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (De­oxyri­bonu­cle­ic Acid) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, was passed yes­ter­day with­out Op­po­si­tion sup­port.

The Bill in­tro­duces two new cat­e­gories un­der the DNA Act for manda­to­ry DNA sam­pling.

“For­eign ter­ror­ist fight­ers,” re­fer­ring to per­sons linked to ter­ror­ist or in­sur­gent ac­tiv­i­ty abroad, and “re­turnees,” mean­ing in­di­vid­u­als ar­riv­ing from de­clared con­flict zones where they were de­tained in camps or sim­i­lar fa­cil­i­ties.

The amend­ment al­so ex­pands Sec­tion 16(1) of the Act, al­low­ing au­thor­i­ties to take non-in­ti­mate DNA sam­ples, such as cheek swabs, not on­ly from de­port­ed cit­i­zens but al­so from per­sons clas­si­fied un­der these new cat­e­gories up­on en­try in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Dar­rell Al­la­har told the Up­per House, “So this is a spe­cial type of leg­is­la­tion, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and I would like mem­bers of the Sen­ate to ap­pre­ci­ate that this has to do with bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures and the build­ing of a DNA data­base for per­sons who ought to have their DNA there.”

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor San­jiv Bood­hu raised con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns over the leg­is­la­tion, warn­ing it could hand sweep­ing pow­ers to the ex­ec­u­tive with­out suf­fi­cient ju­di­cial over­sight.

Bood­hu ar­gued the amend­ments would al­low in­di­vid­u­als to be la­belled as ter­ror­ism risks and com­pelled to pro­vide DNA sam­ples with­out be­ing charged or con­vict­ed.

“It cre­ates a frame­work where­by the ex­ec­u­tive may ef­fec­tive­ly des­ig­nate an in­di­vid­ual as a ter­ror­ism risk with­out ju­di­cial over­sight, with­out con­vic­tion, with­out charge, with­out hear­ing and in some cas­es with­out even dis­clo­sure of the ev­i­den­tial ba­sis for that des­ig­na­tion,” Bood­hu said.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr De­siree Mur­ray sup­port­ed the in­tent of the Gov­ern­ment’s DNA Amend­ment Bill but warned that parts of the leg­is­la­tion could breach con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and cre­ate le­gal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties due to weak­ness­es in the foren­sic sys­tem.

Dr Mur­ray said com­pul­so­ry DNA col­lec­tion from re­turnees and al­leged for­eign ter­ror­ist fight­ers amount­ed to a se­ri­ous in­tru­sion in­to per­son­al pri­va­cy and bod­i­ly au­ton­o­my.

Com­ing down to a vote where a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty was need­ed, 23 sen­a­tors vot­ed in favour of the Bill with 7 against. In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Michael Si­mon Vic­tor de la Bastide vot­ed against the Bill.