Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is claim­ing that the gun amnesty of­fered dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) is not valid, as a gun amnesty can­not be im­ple­ment­ed by reg­u­la­tion on­ly, and the Gov­ern­ment must come to Par­lia­ment to get a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty vote on this.

She spoke on the is­sue at Mon­day’s UNC Fo­rum pri­or to next Mon­day’s Par­lia­ment de­bate on the SoE. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley will pi­lot a de­bate on a mo­tion on the SoE that was an­nounced last Mon­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the reg­u­la­tions were large­ly a copy-and-paste job from the 2011 SoE reg­u­la­tions, save that the pro­vi­sion pro­hibit­ing pub­lic gath­er­ings was delet­ed.

“I don’t think Sec­tion Sev­en of the Con­sti­tu­tion was in­tend­ed to em­pow­er the Pres­i­dent to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion or dis­place en­trenched pro­vi­sions. It should be read as giv­ing just enough pow­er to achieve a le­git­i­mate aim,” she said.

Tak­ing is­sue with SoE reg­u­la­tions, she added, “The High Court’s habeas cor­pus ju­ris­dic­tion can­not be sus­pend­ed un­der the reg­u­la­tions. So too the de­nial of bail. These can on­ly be done where clear and ex­pressed words al­low. Sec­tion Sev­en of the Con­sti­tu­tion con­tains no such words. It is a sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers is­sue. The Tri­bunal is on­ly ad­vi­so­ry. It was nev­er in­tend­ed to re­place the ju­ris­dic­tion of a judge of the High Court.

“The cur­rent Reg­u­la­tion 11 con­cern­ing a gun amnesty was al­so in the 2011 SoE reg­u­la­tion, (but) a gun amnesty can­not be im­ple­ment­ed by reg­u­la­tion on­ly; they must come to Par­lia­ment to get a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty vote. So, there is no gun amnesty in ef­fect at the mo­ment, de­spite what may be re­port­ed.

“Reg­u­la­tion 11 re­gard­ing a gun amnesty has the ef­fect of un­law­ful­ly fet­ter­ing the dis­cre­tion of the DPP un­der sec­tion 90 of the Con­sti­tu­tion. Sec­tion 90 of the Con­sti­tu­tion is one of those pro­vi­sions to which sec­tion 54(3) of the Con­sti­tu­tion ap­plies and is a heav­i­ly en­trenched pro­vi­sion. Any amend­ment to this pro­vi­sion can­not be law­ful un­less it re­ceives two-thirds of the sup­port of the mem­bers of both hous­es. Such a pro­vi­sion can­not be law­ful­ly passed by reg­u­la­tion, even un­der a SoE.”

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds did not re­ply to Guardian Me­dia’s queries on the mat­ter yes­ter­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so asked if any se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion for pos­sess­ing an au­to­mat­ic firearm, who from the TTPS ap­proved the per­mit for this, and who was the deal­er that im­port­ed this au­to­mat­ic firearm and sold it to the of­fi­cial.

She said, “Is this pro­posed gun amnesty aimed at as­sist­ing the se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial, se­nior TTPS of­fi­cial, and deal­er to evade pros­e­cu­tion for pos­ses­sion of this pro­hib­it­ed au­to­mat­ic firearm?

“I in­tend to for­mal­ly write to the DPP about this pro­vi­sion, as I sus­pect it’s in­tend­ed to pro­tect cer­tain very high of­fice hold­ers.”

Grif­fith—Kam­la shows lack of un­der­stand­ing

On Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ac­cu­sa­tions against the Prime Min­is­ter, Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith on firearm and blast­ing li­cences for busi­ness­man Al­lan Warn­er, Grif­fith said, “An­oth­er base­less at­tack by Kam­la demon­strates ig­no­rance and po­lit­i­cal mis­chief.

“Where she al­ludes, by ask­ing ques­tions, that a firearms deal­er im­port­ed an au­to­mat­ic weapon which was then ap­proved by a TTPS of­fice­hold­er for a civil­ian, it demon­strates lack of com­pre­hen­sion of the le­gal frame­work and process­es in­volved in firearm ap­provals.

“The on­ly per­son au­tho­rised to ap­prove a firearm user’s li­cence is the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. How­ev­er, this ap­proval is strict­ly lim­it­ed to se­mi-au­to­mat­ic firearms and oth­er legal­ly per­mit­ted weapons. The com­mis­sion­er does not, and can­not, ap­prove the ac­qui­si­tion of au­to­mat­ic weapons to civil­ians or il­le­gal weapons.”

Cit­ing the Firearms Act, Chap­ter 16:01 sub-par (2), Grif­fith said Per­sad-Bisses­sar should know as a lawyer and se­nior coun­sel.

“Any sug­ges­tion oth­er­wise is ei­ther root­ed in ig­no­rance or dri­ven by mis­chief. If Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is im­ply­ing that when I was CoP I grant­ed per­mis­sion for some­one to ob­tain an il­le­gal weapon, she’s bla­tant­ly mis­lead­ing the pub­lic and once again choos­ing to en­gage in a base­less at­tack on me and my char­ac­ter. As she should know, I will not com­pro­mise my prin­ci­ples nor stain my char­ac­ter for any­one, even if it costs me my job.”

There was no re­ply from PM Row­ley on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim he got an ap­pli­ca­tion for a spe­cial gun to kill farm an­i­mals.