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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Not time yet for SOE to be called—Attorney

by

1778 days ago
20200406

Al­though some sec­tors of so­ci­ety are call­ing for a State of Emer­gency (SOE) as a pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sure against the spread of COVID-19, many in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty are of the view that the time for an SOE has not yet ar­rived.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia, de­fence at­tor­ney Fa­reed Ali says this coun­try’s Con­sti­tu­tion clear­ly high­lights the par­tic­u­lar con­di­tions that ought to be sat­is­fied be­fore an SOE may be de­clared. In his opin­ion, "to do in this mo­ment would be pre­ma­ture".

Fa­reed Ali ex­plains that The Pres­i­dent, Her Ex­cel­len­cy Paula Mae Weeks, has the con­sti­tu­tion­al pre­rog­a­tive to pro­claim an SOE, but on­ly if there is a ba­sis for it, as the Pres­i­dent can on­ly do as the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go al­lows her to do.

“To de­clare an SOE, there must be a con­sti­tu­tion­al ground for so do­ing," he points out. "Her Ex­cel­len­cy, ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 8(1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, may make a procla­ma­tion de­clar­ing a SOE if there are grounds for it. The pow­er to pro­claim same can­not be ar­bi­trar­i­ly ex­er­cised.”

“S.8(2) de­lin­eates that the pres­i­dent may do so if there is an out­break of a pesti­lence or in­fec­tious dis­ease,” the de­fence at­tor­ney notes.  “Ac­cord­ing to S.9(1), with­in 3 days sub­se­quent to Her Ex­cel­len­cy procla­ma­tion she must present to the Speak­er of the House the grounds or rea­sons for her procla­ma­tion of a SOE. There­after, the Speak­er sets a date for a de­bate of the grounds of the Pres­i­dent’s de­ci­sion.

S.9(2) of the Con­sti­tu­tion al­lows for the SoE to re­main in place for up to 15 days fol­low­ing its procla­ma­tion. S.10(1) al­lows for an ex­ten­sion of time of the SOE for ad­di­tion­al pe­ri­ods of up to three months and an even larg­er ag­gre­gate of as much as, but not ex­ceed­ing, a pe­ri­od of 6 months.  To achieve the lat­ter re­quires a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty with­in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. In ad­di­tion, S.10(2) al­lows for ag­gre­gates of 3 month ex­ten­sions be­yond what is pro­vid­ed for in S.10(1) for pe­ri­ods of three months, but the lat­ter would re­quire the ad­di­tion­al re­quire­ment of three-fifths ma­jori­ties of all Mem­bers of each House.

"In this mo­ment it ap­pears there is an out­break of a pesti­lence or an in­fec­tious dis­ease that threat­en the state of T&T. The scope of the threat ought to be analysed by a recog­nised au­thor­i­ty; one that can speak to the na­ture and sub­stance of the threat the coun­try faces at this na­tion­al junc­ture," Ali said.

"The spread of in­for­ma­tion by way of so­cial me­dia tends to tele­scope to the wider pop­u­la­tion that an SOE ought to be de­clared. How­ev­er, if the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) is the sole body that can speak to the sta­tis­ti­cal da­ta, on which The Pres­i­dent must ground the ba­sis for her would-be procla­ma­tion, then CARPHA’s sta­tis­ti­cal da­ta alone will dic­tate Her Ex­cel­len­cy's course of con­duct," he added.

Ali said the CARPHA fig­ures sur­round­ing the vi­ral in­fec­tion ra­tio and death nu­mer­ic de­ter­mines the mea­sure The Pres­i­dent ought to be guid­ed by.

"If it is that we are to re­pose con­fi­dence in the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO), Dr. Roshan Paras­ram, and Min­is­ter of Health, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, time alone will tell whether the trust placed in these men was well found­ed," Ali ob­serves.

"The Pres­i­dent can­not al­low her per­son­al feel­ings or pub­lic opin­ion to guide her de­ci­sion mak­ing. No amount of po­lit­i­cal un­der­cur­rent em­a­nat­ing from any sec­tion of the wider com­mu­ni­ty must fu­el her course of con­duct. How­ev­er, the pow­ers vest­ed in our Pres­i­dent and the in­cum­bent Gov­ern­ment and Par­lia­men­tary Struc­tures must be trust­ed at this time, " Ali said.

He said un­til there is a threat of com­mu­ni­ty spread among the pop­u­la­tion, the Pres­i­dent can­not pro­claim an SOE.

"Pres­i­den­tial procla­ma­tion is guid­ed by rea­son. She must be able to jus­ti­fy the grounds of her procla­ma­tion be­fore par­lia­ment and if she choos­es to act,” he notes, “it must be able to with­stand the test of rea­son­able­ness. Oth­er­wise she may be act­ing out­side of her pow­ers or un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly."

He added: "There are sev­er­al rungs on the lad­der to as­cend be­fore the thresh­old may be sat­is­fied and there­fore, trig­ger her ac­tion. Un­til that thresh­old is achieved, T&T may not be placed un­der an SOE. If the cur­rent reg­u­la­tions are fol­lowed and the coun­try self reg­u­lates ef­fec­tive­ly, there may be no need for an SOE."

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Sto­ry by RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT


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