If noth­ing else, the pan­dem­ic has made rapid learn­ers out of all of us. Epi­demi­ol­o­gy, phar­ma­col­o­gy, eco­nom­ics, glob­al trade and trav­el, and con­sti­tu­tions have been rich with overnight spe­cial­ist op­por­tu­ni­ty.

It has been as easy for natur­opaths to ac­quire speedy ex­per­tise in epi­demi­ol­o­gy and pub­lic health as it has been to make the sim­ple switch from the­ol­o­gy to bi­ol­o­gy or from stocks and bonds to pan­dem­ic man­age­ment.

There are now writ­ers of fic­tion who cur­rent­ly of­fer spe­cial­ist di­rec­tion in bio­chem­istry and phys­i­ol­o­gy, and med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers who know every­thing about com­mu­ni­ca­tion and be­hav­iour change. A knowl­edge of video cam­eras is al­so ap­par­ent­ly adapt­able to ex­per­tise in elec­tron mi­croscopy.

Yet, one of the more strik­ing things about the cur­rent pe­ri­od has been the emer­gence of brand-new con­cern about the scope and na­ture of hu­man rights. Sud­den­ly, peo­ple are recog­nis­ing link­ages be­tween med­ical im­per­a­tive and a right to de­cide and even a right of free ex­pres­sion.

Se­lec­tive ap­pli­ca­tion of choice, some now ar­gue, is all in or­der as a mat­ter of “rights.” Not all, of course, be­cause women should not have ac­cess to re­pro­duc­tive rights and peo­ple of the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty should not have equal op­por­tu­ni­ty un­der the law.

It has not been an easy ride, this nov­el con­cern about hu­man rights. Per­va­sive un­fa­mil­iar­i­ty with even some ba­sic tenets has fu­elled loud but large­ly mean­ing­less de­bates about vac­cine man­dates, free­dom of move­ment, and the emer­gency pow­ers of the state.

You can tell when peo­ple are grasp­ing at a straw to which lit­tle at­ten­tion has pre­vi­ous­ly been paid. Skip the parts about rights as uni­ver­sal, in­di­vis­i­ble, and in­alien­able. This is rapid, home­made ad­min­is­ter­ing of bush med­i­cine. Get to the point. You do not want to take the vac­cine.

As has been the case with med­i­cine—and spe­cial­i­sa­tions with­in the dis­ci­pline—peo­ple with a sound ground­ing in the law ought to have been rush­ing to the front to pro­vide the re­quired guid­ance.

But there has al­ways ap­peared to have been a re­luc­tance by the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty to be­come mean­ing­ful­ly en­gaged.

As some­one con­cerned about and ac­tive­ly en­gaged in ad­vo­ca­cy in favour of press free­dom and free­dom of ex­pres­sion for decades now, I have of­ten won­dered about the lack of en­thu­si­asm.

One se­nior le­gal prac­ti­tion­er once con­fessed to me that this area is not a nat­u­ral­ly oc­cur­ring con­cern with­in the fra­ter­ni­ty, ex­cept when need­ed to bol­ster pop­u­lar­i­ty or to ben­e­fit from a lu­cra­tive brief. There are no­table ex­cep­tions, of course. But such pro­fes­sion­als con­sti­tute a small mi­nor­i­ty.

As ev­i­dence, it took the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (MATT) and the T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA)—vol­un­tary in­dus­try or­gan­i­sa­tions—to re­mind the gov­ern­ment, al­beit through scarce le­gal coun­sel, that even with the best in­ten­tions, da­ta pro­tec­tion and cy­ber­crime leg­is­la­tion as con­cep­tu­alised by politi­cians here can have the im­pact of crim­i­nal­is­ing acts of jour­nal­ism and oth­er forms of pub­lic in­ter­est com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

When that point was made at hear­ings of the Joint Se­lec­tion Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment on the Cy­ber­crime Bill 2017, there was no groundswell of neg­a­tive pop­u­lar ex­pres­sion.

The lack of sup­port was hard­ly sur­pris­ing. When some of us marched for press free­dom on No­vem­ber 20,1998 against the back­drop of per­ceived gov­ern­men­tal ill-in­tent for the me­dia sec­tor, there were peo­ple at the street cor­ners jeer­ing and cast­ing hate­ful glances.

Dur­ing par­lia­men­tary de­bate on the abo­li­tion of crim­i­nal defama­tion in 2013, gov­ern­ment, op­po­si­tion and in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors were al­most unan­i­mous­ly dead set against the view that, with very few de­fend­able ex­cep­tions, peo­ple should not be im­pris­oned for their ex­pres­sion.

Now, sud­den­ly, “free­dom of ex­pres­sion” is deemed de­pend­able to ad­dress the con­cerns of peo­ple who wish to en­ter “safe zone” with­out be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed.

On­ly a week ago, some­one posed a ques­tion to me on so­cial me­dia about pro­posed vac­ci­na­tion cards and “free­dom of ex­pres­sion” (in quotes).

I think I lost a so­cial me­dia fol­low­er when I re­spond­ed terse­ly and im­pa­tient­ly: “Why is free­dom of ex­pres­sion in quotes? There have al­ways been ac­cept­able dero­ga­tions of the prin­ci­ple. Lots of lit­er­a­ture on this.”

But who re­al­ly goes to the “lit­er­a­ture?” Who tru­ly be­lieves in this stuff?

The 2013, Sen­ate de­bate was in­struc­tive. Our post-colo­nial de­fault rou­tine­ly errs on the side of pro­hi­bi­tion, ex­cept when a good time is to be had by most.

I am not fooled by the overnight in­ter­est and con­cern. There is a nu­anced, in­formed de­bate to be en­gaged on some of this. I am hear­ing, for ex­am­ple, about a na­tion­al ID card. While we await more, take the vac­cine please. It will pro­tect you and oth­ers. That’s an easy one to learn.