Derek Achong

Ac­tivist Alyssa Phillip and her moth­er Camille Cares­quero have been charged fol­low­ing their ar­rests dur­ing Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions in Fyz­abad on Fri­day. 

The pros­e­cu­tion of Phillip and Cares­quero, who are al­ready fac­ing charges aris­ing out of a pub­lic demon­stra­tion late last month, was an­nounced by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in a press re­lease is­sued a short while ago. 

The re­lease stat­ed that Phillip had been charged with be­ing the leader of a march and fail­ing to call on such a march to dis­perse, dis­or­der­ly be­hav­iour, and re­sist­ing ar­rest. Cas­es­quero was charged for be­ing present at a march and fail­ing to dis­perse, ob­struct­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer, and re­sist­ing ar­rest. 

The TTPS gave a lengthy ex­pla­na­tion jus­ti­fy­ing the duo's ar­rest and sub­se­quent pros­e­cu­tion. 

It said that while trade union or­gan­i­sa­tions ap­plied for and re­ceived the req­ui­site per­mis­sion to en­gage in their cel­e­bra­tions, a group led by Phillip did not. 

It claimed that its of­fi­cers checked with trade union lead­ers to ver­i­fy whether Phlli­ip and her group were part of their pro­ces­sion and based on the re­spons­es, they ad­vised them (Phillip and the group) to dis­perse. 

"De­spite this clear ex­pla­na­tion, the group pro­ceed­ed to form and par­tic­i­pate in an unau­tho­rised pro­ces­sion at the rear of the law­ful march," it said. 

Re­fer­ring to the le­gal ba­sis for the ac­tion of the po­lice of­fi­cers, the TTPS point­ed to sec­tion 116 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, which gives se­nior of­fi­cers the au­thor­i­ty to call on a leader of a march to call on mem­bers to dis­perse and makes it an of­fence for the leader and fol­low­ers to dis­re­gard the in­struc­tion. 

"The leader of the ac­tivist group re­fused to call on the un­law­ful pro­ces­sion to dis­perse. Of­fi­cers there­fore act­ed im­me­di­ate­ly and law­ful­ly to pre­vent es­ca­la­tion and pro­tect the in­tegri­ty of the au­tho­rised event," it said. 

It al­so cit­ed a judg­ment in which for­mer High Court Judge and cur­rent Ap­pel­late Judge Ricky Rahim pro­vid­ed ju­di­cial clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the dis­tinc­tion be­tween pub­lic meet­ings and march­es. 

In the judg­ment, Jus­tice Rahim ruled that no per­mit is need­ed for pub­lic meet­ings, un­like march­es. 

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Rahim not­ed that the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er may be per­mit­ted to pro­hib­it such meet­ings in cer­tain cir­cum­stances. 

"This judg­ment con­firms that any group wish­ing to par­tic­i­pate in a pub­lic march must have a per­mit, and that at­tach­ing an unau­tho­rised pos­ses­sion to a law­ful one is a breach of the Act," the TTPS said. 

"The ac­tivist group in ques­tion did not give no­tice of a meet­ing, nor did they ap­ply for or re­ceive a per­mit for a march. Their ac­tions, there­fore, fell square­ly with­in the statu­to­ry de­f­i­n­i­tion of an un­law­ful pub­lic march," it added. 

The TTPS went as far as to jus­ti­fy the de­ci­sion of its of­fi­cers to in­ter­vene, as it claimed that they had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to main­tain pub­lic or­der and en­sure law­ful events are not hi­jacked or dis­rupt­ed.

"Al­low­ing an un­per­mit­ted pro­ces­sion to merge with a law­ful one would have un­der­mined the event, cre­at­ed se­cu­ri­ty risks, and vi­o­lat­ed the le­gal frame­work gov­ern­ing pub­lic march­es," it said. 

The re­lease in­clud­ed a state­ment from Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, who said that while the TTPS re­spects the rights of all cit­i­zens to as­sem­ble and ex­press their views, such ac­tiv­i­ty must be with­in the con­fines of the le­gal frame­work. 

"Of­fi­cers act­ed with re­straint, clar­i­ty, and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. It is re­gret­table that en­force­ment be­came nec­es­sary, but the sanc­ti­ty of the Labour Day pro­ces­sion should nev­er be com­pro­mised by per­sons seek­ing to at­tach un­re­lat­ed agen­das to a per­mit­ted na­tion­al event," Gue­var­ro said.