A so­cial ac­tivist has threat­ened to sue the Cab­i­net over Car­ni­val reg­u­la­tions that seek to out­law singing or recital of lewd or of­fen­sive songs and pre­vent rev­ellers from in­dulging in im­moral, lewd and of­fen­sive be­hav­iour or ges­tures. 

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Bar­ring­ton “Skip­py” Thomas made the threat in a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent on Fri­day. 

In the cor­re­spon­dence, Thomas’ lawyer Kiel Tak­lals­ingh claimed the reg­u­la­tions dero­gat­ed from the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion.

“The wan­ton dis­re­gard of these pro­vi­sions as has been ap­par­ent from their se­lec­tive non-ap­pli­ca­tion fur­ther but­tress­es the con­clu­sion that they are not re­stric­tions which are rea­son­ably jus­ti­fi­able in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try that has re­spect for hu­man rights,”  he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Tak­lals­ingh, his client be­came con­cerned af­ter the reg­u­la­tions, un­der Pub­lic Hol­i­days and Fes­ti­vals Act, were pub­lished in a le­gal no­tice on Feb­ru­ary 2. 

Un­der the leg­is­la­tion, the Pres­i­dent, pur­suant to Cab­i­net di­rec­tion, can is­sue reg­u­la­tions to en­sure the prop­er be­hav­iour of per­sons and the preser­va­tion of peace at fes­ti­vals. It al­so pre­scribed a max­i­mum penal­ty of a $1,000 fine and up to six month in prison for breach­ing the reg­u­la­tions. 

Tak­lals­ingh sug­gest­ed that the reg­u­la­tions were un­law­ful and ir­ra­tional con­sid­er­ing the his­to­ry of the fes­ti­val and the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion. 

“Car­ni­val and its as­so­ci­at­ed events are the apogee of ex­pres­sion, cre­ativ­i­ty, and cel­e­bra­tion in our twin is­land state,” Tak­lals­ingh said. 

“Its ori­gins are root­ed in re­sis­tance and vir­u­lent ex­pres­sion; the Can­boulay Ri­ots, and failed at­tempts to pro­hib­it drum­ming and stick fight­ing all stand as a tes­ti­mo­ny to the bois­ter­ous essence of Car­ni­val which, to some, may be per­ceived as ‘of­fen­sive’ and pos­si­bly ‘im­moral’,” Tak­lals­ingh said. 

He claimed reg­u­la­tions ban­ning the singing or recital of lewd or of­fen­sive songs are hope­less­ly ir­ra­tional based on its vague­ness and “patent ab­sur­di­ty”. He re­ferred to sev­er­al ca­lyp­sos from the past, which he ad­mit­ted could be ac­cept­able to some but of­fen­sive or im­moral to oth­ers. 

The songs in­clud­ed Crazy’s “Paul Your Moth­er Come”  and the Mighty Spar­row’s “Sa Sa Yea” and “Con­go Man”. 

Tak­lals­ingh not­ed that his client was most dis­turbed by an as­pect of the leg­is­la­tion which em­pow­ers jus­tices of the peace to pre­side over cas­es where per­sons are ar­rest­ed by po­lice for breach of the reg­u­la­tions. 

“In oth­er words, a cit­i­zen may be rev­el­ling in the usu­al and nor­ma­tive Car­ni­val be­hav­iour, or recit­ing songs which may con­tain sug­ges­tive lyrics, be ar­rest­ed by a po­lice of­fi­cer, tak­en and tried be­fore a jus­tice of the peace, and im­pris­oned or fined for en­gag­ing in Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ty,” he said. 

“Con­tex­tu­al­ly, cul­tur­al­ly, and his­tor­i­cal­ly, these reg­u­la­tions are man­i­fest­ly un­just and too vague to be fair­ly, con­sis­tent­ly and equal­ly en­force­able.”  

Tak­lals­ingh gave the Cab­i­net un­til 4 pm to­mor­row to re­spond to the le­gal threat be­fore he files the law­suit on his client’s be­half. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that he had not re­ceived a re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day. 

Thomas is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Leon Kalicha­ran, Ste­fan Ramkissoon and Rhea Khan.