The on­go­ing de­bate over the pow­er of the po­lice to en­ter pri­vate prop­er­ty with­out a war­rant to en­force pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic can on­ly tru­ly be set­tled by the courts.

Speak­ing on the is­sue un­der the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, yes­ter­day, a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer sug­gest­ed that ju­di­cial in­ter­ven­tion may be the best way to re­solve the pub­lic dis­pute.

He sug­gest­ed that an in­ter­pre­ta­tion law­suit could be brought by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, which was among the first to speak out about the pur­port­ed pow­er, or a cit­i­zen, who is sub­ject to such a vis­it by po­lice.

Asked for his per­son­al views on the is­sue, the ju­di­cial of­fi­cer de­scribed as it ab­solute­ly ridicu­lous as he point­ed out that un­der the reg­u­la­tions the po­lice can on­ly as­sist a pub­lic health of­fi­cer, who is con­cerned over a breach on pri­vate prop­er­ty.

“And if they en­ter, what reg­u­la­tions would be breached? There is no reg­u­la­tion for pri­vate spaces,” he said.

He sug­gest­ed that wide in­ter­pre­ta­tions of the reg­u­la­tions were de­signed to use fear and mis­in­for­ma­tion to get com­pli­ance.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Om Lal­la al­so stat­ed that the reg­u­la­tions in their cur­rent form do not ex­tend to pri­vate prop­er­ty.

“There are no of­fences cur­rent­ly that re­late to pri­vate prop­er­ty in terms of masks, func­tions or gath­er­ings,” he said, as he not­ed that po­lice would not have the pow­er to en­ter pri­vate prop­er­ty un­til of­fences for such ac­tiv­i­ty are cod­i­fied.

Lal­la sug­gest­ed that in the ab­sence of such clar­i­fi­ca­tion, the State could be in­un­dat­ed with law­suits from ag­griev­ed cit­i­zens.

“With­out that we are go­ing to have overzeal­ous po­lice of­fi­cers en­ter­ing pri­vate prop­er­ty and a le­gal de­bate en­su­ing in the courts over what is rea­son­able­ness, what are the of­fences and where we should go,” Lal­la said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Se­nior Coun­sel Mar­tin Daly al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the pur­port­ed pow­er.

“Any state­ment giv­ing the po­lice en­cour­age­ment to be­lieve that they have some gen­er­al right to en­ter pri­vate prop­er­ty “in the pub­lic in­ter­est” be­cause there is a pub­lic health cri­sis is a mat­ter for great con­cern,” Daly said.

“There is al­so a lim­it on how far reg­u­la­tions can go in an at­tempt to crim­i­nal­ize con­duct,” he added.

The de­bate over the is­sue arose last week based on com­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley while he was an­nounc­ing the most re­cent amend­ment to the reg­u­la­tions.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land have sup­port­ed Row­ley’s views on the po­lice’s pow­ers to en­force the reg­u­la­tions.

Since the reg­u­la­tions were in­tro­duced to com­bat the pan­dem­ic, a lit­tle over a year ago, there have been sev­er­al le­gal chal­lenges, which have all failed.

How­ev­er, none of the le­gal chal­lenges dealt specif­i­cal­ly with the pow­er of po­lice to en­ter pri­vate prop­er­ty pur­suant to en­forc­ing the reg­u­la­tions.