Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Stu­art Young has out­lined the specifics of a State of Emer­gency (SoE) de­clared to ad­dress es­ca­lat­ing crim­i­nal vi­o­lence in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Young em­pha­sised that the mea­sures aim to tar­get vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in­volv­ing il­le­gal firearms, am­mu­ni­tion, and ex­plo­sives, while en­sur­ing that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens' rights are min­i­mal­ly im­pact­ed.

Here are the key take­aways:

No Cur­few:

“There will be no cur­few or re­stric­tions on pub­lic meet­ings or march­es at this stage,” Young stat­ed dur­ing a press con­fer­ence. “The fo­cus is on those en­gaged in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Ex­tend­ed Po­lice Pow­ers:

Un­der the emer­gency reg­u­la­tions, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) will re­ceive en­hanced pow­ers, in­clud­ing the au­thor­i­ty to search premis­es and in­di­vid­u­als with­out war­rants if there is rea­son­able sus­pi­cion of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. In­di­vid­u­als found in pos­ses­sion of il­le­gal firearms or in the com­pa­ny of those car­ry­ing such items can al­so face de­ten­tion.

De­ten­tion Pow­ers Ex­plained:

The reg­u­la­tions al­low for the de­ten­tion of in­di­vid­u­als for up to 48 hours with­out charge. Be­yond that pe­ri­od, a mag­is­trate or se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer may au­tho­rize fur­ther de­ten­tion for up to sev­en days while ev­i­dence is gath­ered. These pro­vi­sions aim to fa­cil­i­tate thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to sus­pect­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the reg­u­la­tions sus­pend bail for in­di­vid­u­als de­tained un­der the SoE. Po­lice of­fi­cers will al­so be em­pow­ered to stop, search, and de­tain in­di­vid­u­als, ve­hi­cles, and ves­sels with­out war­rants in pub­lic or pri­vate spaces.

De­fense Force on High Alert:

Young con­firmed that the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) will be de­ployed in a sup­port role to the po­lice. Mem­bers of the TTDF, un­der the in­struc­tions of the Chief of De­fence Staff, will have pow­ers equiv­a­lent to those of po­lice of­fi­cers while act­ing un­der the SoE reg­u­la­tions.

Tri­bunal and Over­sight:

A tri­bunal will be es­tab­lished to han­dle mat­ters aris­ing from the SoE. Young has been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Act­ing Chief Jus­tice Jus­tice of Ap­peal Bar­row to en­sure the le­gal frame­work is in place.

No Con­nec­tion to Re­cent Mil­i­tary Call-Out:

Young dis­missed claims that the SoE is linked to the re­cent mo­bi­liza­tion of De­fence Force re­serves by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo. He clar­i­fied that such mo­bi­liza­tions are rou­tine dur­ing the Christ­mas and Car­ni­val pe­ri­ods to bol­ster na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts.

Time Pe­ri­od of SoE:

The SoE will last an ini­tial 15 days. The Gov­ern­ment will go to Par­lia­ment seek­ing an ex­ten­sion of three months if nec­es­sary, in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion. A fur­ther 3-month ex­ten­sion is pos­si­ble but an SoE can­not ex­ceed six months.

The SoE, Young ex­plained, was ne­ces­si­tat­ed by in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ing threats of re­tal­i­a­tion from crim­i­nal el­e­ments. These threats in­volv