Joel Julien

At­tor­ney and Gov­ern­ment Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port-of-Spain South, Kei­th Scot­land has dis­agreed with the Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s view that po­lice have no le­gal cov­er to en­ter the homes of pri­vate cit­i­zens un­der the pub­lic health or­di­nance.

Scot­land, who is a mem­ber of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, made his views pub­lic in a state­ment yes­ter­day, say­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was right on the mat­ter.

“I am for­ti­fied in my view that the ho­n­ourable prime min­is­ter was plain­ly right, hav­ing re­gard to the reg­u­la­tions and the at­ten­dant ju­rispru­dence, to­geth­er with com­mon law al­ter­na­tives,” Scot­land stat­ed.

“I am a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port-of-Spain South, a mem­ber of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and a mem­ber of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion. But first and fore­most I am a cit­i­zen of the of Trinidad and To­ba­go and would urge that we all do our part in man­ag­ing the spread of the virus and flat­ten­ing the curve,” the stat­ed.

“Our law en­force­ment have the pow­ers to act, whether it be through reg­u­la­tions or com­mon law but the true so­lu­tion can on­ly be re­alised through our col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ef­fort as a so­ci­ety,” Scot­land stat­ed.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion said Fri­day that the new pub­lic health or­di­nance in­tro­duced on Fri­day morn­ing af­ter Dr Row­ley host­ed a news con­fer­ence on COVID-19 on Thurs­day, did not give po­lice the right to en­ter pri­vate prop­er­ty. In fact, the as­so­ci­a­tion said to use the or­di­nance in such a man­ner would be “il­le­gal”.

Se­nior Coun­sel Mar­tin Daly and at­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la al­so raised con­cerns about the PM’s po­si­tion.

Al­so com­ment­ing on the top­ic yes­ter­day was UNC Barataria/San Juan Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Sad­dam Ho­sein.

Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain Ho­sein sided with the Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s stance say­ing Row­ley’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the mat­ter was il­le­gal.

Ho­sein said the fact that no mem­ber of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion ex­ec­u­tive dis­tanced them­selves from the state­ment was ev­i­dence enough that they were cer­tain of the stance tak­en.

He made his state­ments be­fore Scot­land dis­tanced him­self from it.

Ho­sein called on Row­ley to state which at­tor­ney gave him le­gal ad­vice on the mat­ter.

Ho­sein said if Row­ley was right then At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi should be charged for his in­volve­ment in an arm-wrestling match and games which con­tra­vened the laws.