The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) has con­demned what it de­scribes as an “au­thor­i­tar­i­an-like” in­ci­dent at Teteron Bar­racks, where an at­tor­ney was al­leged­ly blind­fold­ed be­fore be­ing al­lowed to con­sult with a client.

In a state­ment is­sued to­day, NATUC said it could not ig­nore the in­ci­dent, which it called “an in­jus­tice to all”.

It point­ed to in­ter­na­tion­al le­gal in­stru­ments in­clud­ing the UN Ba­sic Prin­ci­ples on the Role of Lawyers and the In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Po­lit­i­cal Rights, which guar­an­tee at­tor­neys and de­tainees the right to con­fi­den­tial and in­ter­fer­ence-free com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

“Blind­fold­ing a lawyer may con­sti­tute an ar­bi­trary and de­grad­ing act and could be con­sid­ered in­hu­mane or de­grad­ing treat­ment,” NATUC said.

The um­brel­la body rep­re­sent­ing trade unions added that no lo­cal law al­lows for such treat­ment, and called on the Gov­ern­ment, Ju­di­cia­ry, Law As­so­ci­a­tion, and hu­man rights de­fend­ers to “de­nounce this prac­tice, de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty, and re­store the rule of law.”

It added: “Le­gal coun­sel is a sa­cred right, not a favour.”

The state­ment comes days af­ter at­tor­ney CJ Williams claimed he was asked to wear a blind­fold and con­sult with his client—mur­der ac­cused Earl Richards—un­der the watch of five masked men in tac­ti­cal gear at Teteron, a De­fence Force-con­trolled site. Richards is be­ing held there un­der the State of Emer­gency reg­u­la­tions.

Williams said he was de­nied the con­sul­ta­tion af­ter re­fus­ing to com­ply with the con­di­tions, which al­so in­clud­ed re­stric­tions on com­mu­ni­ca­tion style and warn­ings against us­ing any lan­guage that could be “de­cod­ed” as a sub­lim­i­nal mes­sage. He de­scribed the ex­pe­ri­ence as “in­tim­i­da­tion” and “a sad day in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The at­tor­ney, who is seek­ing ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion from both the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, al­so is call­ing for the Min­is­ters of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and De­fence to car­ry out an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

NATUC warned that even un­der a State of Emer­gency, in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards must be up­held.

“To wa­ter down fun­da­men­tal rights, even in a state of emer­gency, is to un­der­mine the very soul of our democ­ra­cy,” the NATUC re­lease said.