Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­firmed that the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (HOR) will meet next Mon­day af­ter­noon to de­bate an ex­ten­sion of the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed to calls for clar­i­fi­ca­tion yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a me­dia re­port that the House would be meet­ing “Fri­day” to do the ex­ten­sion.

The House will emerge from its cur­rent re­cess for an ex­tra­or­di­nary sit­ting to de­bate the ex­ten­sion af­ter the SoE was launched last Fri­day.

Cer­tain of­fi­cials ex­pect the SoE may be ex­tend­ed by three months. Some sources said an SoE can be ex­tend­ed by a min­i­mum of three months but can be halt­ed with­in that pe­ri­od. If ex­tend­ed by three months, it would end in Oc­to­ber.

The SoE was in­sti­tut­ed last Fri­day fol­low­ing a meet­ing held by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil head­ed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Gue­var­ro ap­prised the Gov­ern­ment of a co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat. The SoE was ap­proved in re­sponse to this.

The TTPS had cit­ed re­cent in­tel­li­gence con­firm­ing the emer­gence of a “co­or­di­nat­ed and high­ly dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal net­work op­er­at­ing from with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties”.

The TTPS not­ed the dis­cov­ery of plans to ex­e­cute at­tacks on se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry, per­son­nel with­in the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), and T&T Prison Ser­vice of­fi­cers. Im­me­di­ate steps were tak­en to re­lo­cate “key in­car­cer­at­ed in­di­vid­u­als”. Law en­force­ment be­gan op­er­a­tions, which, as TTPS stat­ed, “shall con­tin­ue un­til the threat is neu­tralised”.

Mon­day’s sit­ting is in keep­ing with the re­quire­ments of Sec­tion 9 (1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion gov­ern­ing an SoE.

This states that with­in three days of the mak­ing of the procla­ma­tion for an SoE–as was done by the Pres­i­dent last Fri­day–the Pres­i­dent must de­liv­er to the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, for pre­sen­ta­tion to the House, a state­ment set­ting out the spe­cif­ic grounds on which the de­ci­sion to de­clare the SoE was based.

A date is then fixed for a de­bate on this state­ment, no lat­er than 15 days from the date of the procla­ma­tion.

The procla­ma­tion shall, un­less pre­vi­ous­ly re­voked, re­main in force for 15 days.

Al­so, Sec­tion 10(1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion states that be­fore its ex­pi­ra­tion, the procla­ma­tion may be ex­tend­ed from time to time by res­o­lu­tion sup­port­ed by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty means it can be passed with Gov­ern­ment votes alone. An ex­ten­sion of up to six months can be done via a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote in the House alone.

But ex­ten­sion be­yond six months re­quires a three-fifths spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty vote from both the HOR and Sen­ate.

Last Fri­day, Gue­var­ro said it was not his call to say how long the SoE would last.

In Mon­day’s de­bate of the mo­tion for the ex­ten­sion, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie is ex­pect­ed to pi­lot de­bate and de­tail the need for the SoE and ex­ten­sion.

Ex­ten­sion ex­pect­ed–PNM’s Gon­za­les

Af­ter the last SoE in­sti­tut­ed by the past PNM Gov­ern­ment in De­cem­ber 2024, then prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had pi­lot­ed a mo­tion on Jan­u­ary 13, 2025, to ex­tend that SoE by three months. It end­ed in April.

Yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les didn’t re­ply to Guardian Me­dia queries on Mon­day’s de­bate. Beck­les was due back from over­seas yes­ter­day.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les said, “The SoE ex­ten­sion was ex­pect­ed. The Op­po­si­tion will take a very re­spon­si­ble de­ci­sion and ap­proach to the de­bate on these very crit­i­cal is­sues. Our cau­cus will fi­nalise our speak­ers.

“What is clear is the Gov­ern­ment has no plan–they nev­er had one! They lied as usu­al when they told the coun­try dur­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign that they have ‘a plan’. But we con­tin­ue see­ing gov­er­nance by cheap slo­gans and taglines like ‘Hold strain.’ They even told cit­i­zens there was no spike in crime, and we should be con­sid­er­ing how much crime they’ve ‘pre­vent­ed’ rather than how much is ac­tu­al­ly com­mit­ted.

“Now that they’re in charge and nev­er pre­pared for be­ing in charge, it’s gov­er­nance by vaps,” Gon­za­les added.

The PNM has a pub­lic meet­ing in Mal­abar to­mor­row. Trinci­ty/Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, who’s been on leave from Par­lia­ment, didn’t re­ply on whether she might at­tend Mon­day’s sit­ting.