Derek Achong

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has ad­mit­ted that a pur­port­ed gun amnesty un­der reg­u­la­tions for the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) is not cur­rent­ly in ef­fect. 

The AG’s Of­fice made the ad­mis­sion on Tues­day as it re­spond­ed to a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the spe­cif­ic reg­u­la­tion from at­tor­ney Dayadai Har­ri­paul. 

In the let­ter sent on Mon­day, Har­ri­paul’s lawyer Ger­ald Ramdeen claimed that Reg­u­la­tion 11 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2024 is un­law­ful and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al as it in­ter­feres with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP)’s ex­clu­sive purview over crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions. 

The reg­u­la­tion states: “No per­son who sur­ren­ders any firearm, am­mu­ni­tion or ex­plo­sive dur­ing any pe­ri­od that is pre­scribed, and oth­er­wise in ac­cor­dance with an Or­der to sur­ren­der, shall be pros­e­cut­ed un­der the Firearms Act or reg­u­la­tion for il­le­gal­ly pur­chas­ing, ac­quir­ing or pos­sess­ing such firearm, am­mu­ni­tion or ex­plo­sive pri­or to the time of such sur­ren­der or at that time.” 

Ramdeen claimed that the pro­vi­sions of the Con­sti­tu­tion deal­ing with the procla­ma­tion of a SoE did not con­fer the pow­er on the Ex­ec­u­tive to in­ter­fere with the DPP’s re­mit. 

“Nei­ther the Con­sti­tu­tion nor any writ­ten law vest in the Ex­ec­u­tive the pow­er to grant an im­mu­ni­ty from the com­mis­sion of a crim­i­nal of­fence,” Ramdeen said. 

He sug­gest­ed that such may on­ly be pos­si­ble through an amend­ment to the Con­sti­tu­tion. 

“Such a pow­er does not re­side in any ex­ist­ing law and such a pow­er can on­ly be con­ferred by the leg­isla­tive arm of the State ex­er­cis­ing pow­ers that would have to sat­is­fy the en­trench­ment pro­vi­sions of the Con­sti­tu­tion in par­tic­u­lar the ‘su­per-ma­jor­i­ty’ re­quire­ment as well as the rea­son­able jus­ti­fi­ca­tion test,” Ramdeen said. 

Ramdeen was al­so crit­i­cal of the ra­tio­nale for the pro­vi­sion and its po­ten­tial use­ful­ness. 

“No one hav­ing the best in­ter­est of the se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty of our coun­try and the democ­ra­cy we en­joy and who un­der­stands the im­por­tance of up­hold­ing the rule of law will seek to up­hold such a pro­vi­sion,” he said. 

Re­spond­ing to the le­gal threat with­in the 24-hour dead­line giv­en, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at’s Cham­bers Di­rec­tor Solange De Souza asked Ramdeen for a week in which to of­fi­cial­ly re­spond but point­ed out that the reg­u­la­tion has no cur­rent ef­fect. 

“We note your con­cern about the im­ple­men­ta­tion of Reg­u­la­tion 11 in the mean­time and in this re­gard wish to draw to your at­ten­tion the fact that Reg­u­la­tion 11 is trig­gered by the sur­ren­der of firearms, am­mu­ni­tion, and ex­plo­sives dur­ing a pe­ri­od to be pre­scribed,” De Souza said. 

“As you are no doubt aware, that pe­ri­od has not yet been pre­scribed and as such it is not yet pos­si­ble to ac­tion amnesty which is con­tem­plat­ed,” she added. 

She al­so not­ed that the pe­ri­od would not be pre­scribed in the next week be­fore he re­ceives the of­fi­cial re­sponse to the le­gal threat. “In light of the fore­go­ing we trust that your client will see fit to await the sub­stan­tive re­ceipt of our re­sponse as the mat­ter she wish­es to raise will not be prej­u­diced in any way by so do­ing,” De Souza said. 

Speak­ing at a T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) press con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Richard Smith not­ed that the TTPS’s le­gal team un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, was cur­rent­ly re­view­ing the gun amnesty pro­vi­sion. 

“Un­der the (SoE) reg­u­la­tions, I be­lieve it’s sec­tion 13, there is men­tion of an amnesty, how­ev­er, our le­gal team which is head­ed by Mr Gilbert Pe­ter­son they are in fact en­gaged in clar­i­fy­ing that clause...So we will have that in­for­ma­tion for you at a lat­er date,” Smith said. 

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, yes­ter­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin not­ed that the po­si­tion ar­tic­u­lat­ed by the AG’s Of­fice would not af­fect the 22 il­le­gal firearms that were re­cov­ered since the SoE was pro­claimed, last Mon­day, as such were seized and not sur­ren­dered. 

“The TTPS has al­ways done what we are ac­cus­tomed do­ing, which is based on in­tel­li­gence, act on those ac­tive in­tel­li­gence, and en­sure at the end of the day that we turn that in­tel­li­gence in­to ev­i­dence by ac­tu­al­ly seiz­ing, ar­rest­ing and de­tain­ing per­sons for such of­fences,” Ben­jamin said. 

“We will con­tin­ue to do that so it doesn’t af­fect us in any way in terms of our nor­mal op­er­a­tion,” he added. 

He al­so not­ed that the amnesty was just an ad­di­tion­al tool giv­en to the po­lice un­der the SoE to re­move il­le­gal weapons from the streets and the TTPS’s ac­tions would not be cur­tailed with­out it. 

The Par­lia­ment de­bate of the SoE, which is re­quired to take place with­in 15 days of the ini­tial procla­ma­tion by the Pres­i­dent, is sched­uled for next Mon­day. 

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives can ex­tend the SoE for three months by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote. 

A three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty vote in both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate is re­quired for a fur­ther ex­ten­sion.