Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor–New­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion MP for Arou­ca/Lopinot and for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, Mar­vin Gon­za­les, says the Op­po­si­tion can­not sup­port the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) be­cause the Gov­ern­ment has not pro­vid­ed suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to jus­ti­fy an­oth­er emer­gency de­c­la­ra­tion.

Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day’s de­bate on the ex­ten­sion in Par­lia­ment, Gon­za­les ar­gued that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie failed to demon­strate that the coun­try cur­rent­ly faces an im­me­di­ate threat se­ri­ous enough to war­rant sus­pend­ing cer­tain con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions.

“There is ab­solute­ly noth­ing that demon­strates that there is an im­me­di­ate threat in Trinidad and To­ba­go that war­rants the call­ing of a state of pub­lic emer­gency,” Gon­za­les said.

He warned that a SoE is an ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sure that di­rect­ly af­fects cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

“When a state of pub­lic emer­gency is de­clared… you are talk­ing about the sus­pen­sion of our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights,” he said, re­fer­ring to re­stric­tions on bail and the right to chal­lenge de­ten­tion be­fore a judge.

Gon­za­les re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the Op­po­si­tion was un­will­ing to sup­port law en­force­ment, point­ing out that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment had backed the orig­i­nal SoE when the Gov­ern­ment first sought par­lia­men­tary ap­proval.

At that time, he said, in­tel­li­gence pre­sent­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil in­di­cat­ed se­ri­ous threats in­volv­ing ac­tors with­in the prison sys­tem and al­leged plots tar­get­ing se­nior state of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

“It is this Op­po­si­tion that stood with the Gov­ern­ment and said we will stand on the side of law en­force­ment,” Gon­za­les said.

How­ev­er, he ques­tioned why Gov­ern­ment had not pro­vid­ed up­dates on the out­come of those in­ves­ti­ga­tions de­spite hun­dreds of peo­ple be­ing de­tained.

“We asked the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al what is the sta­tus of these mat­ters. Where is the in­ves­ti­ga­tion? Who is be­ing placed be­fore the courts?” he said.

Gon­za­les al­so re­ferred to pre­vi­ous state­ments by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro in­di­cat­ing that the threat which ini­tial­ly prompt­ed the pre­vi­ous SoE had been neu­tralised.

“If the threat was neu­tralised and there has been sys­tem­at­ic dis­man­tling of an or­gan­ised crim­i­nal gang in Trinidad and To­ba­go, then for God’s sake, what are we do­ing here to­day?” he asked.

Gon­za­les al­so crit­i­cised the AG for re­peat­ed­ly re­fer­ring to for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion in­stead of ad­dress­ing the cur­rent se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion.

He said the Par­lia­ment was not the place for per­son­al griev­ances and urged the AG to move past his crit­i­cisms of the for­mer PNM leader.

“We are in the sea­son of Lent,” Gon­za­les said.

“If you have a bee in your bon­net for Dr Row­ley, go and seek for­give­ness… go and find a church, do the Sta­tions of the Cross, go down on your knees and re­pent.”

Gon­za­les al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of hypocrisy, point­ing to state­ments made in 2024 by then-op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cis­ing the use of emer­gency pow­ers.

He quot­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar as say­ing at the time: “This gov­ern­ment has no re­al plan to tack­le crime. The state of emer­gency is a shame­less po­lit­i­cal gim­mick, a band aid so­lu­tion that does noth­ing to ad­dress the root caus­es of crime.”

Gon­za­les ar­gued that the same par­ty now in Gov­ern­ment was ad­vanc­ing the mea­sure it had pre­vi­ous­ly con­demned.

“Po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy of the high­est or­der,” he said, adding that an­oth­er Op­po­si­tion MP had de­scribed it as “sanc­ti­mo­nious hypocrisy.”

Dur­ing the de­bate, Je­re­mie de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s re­quest for an ex­ten­sion, ar­gu­ing that the coun­try con­tin­ues to face es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence.

He said in­tel­li­gence re­ports point­ed to mass shoot­ings and or­gan­ised gang ac­tiv­i­ty as well as cred­i­ble threats against po­lice of­fi­cers, prison of­fi­cers and oth­er se­nior state of­fi­cials.

Je­re­mie warned that if crim­i­nal net­works were al­lowed to ex­pand unchecked, T&T could face a sit­u­a­tion sim­i­lar to Haiti, where gangs have seized con­trol of com­mu­ni­ties and in­sti­tu­tions.

“We met a coun­try whose foun­da­tion was so pro­found­ly cor­rod­ed, so sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly un­der­mined by the crim­i­nal un­der­world that Haiti seemed to be im­mi­nent for us,” Je­re­mie told Par­lia­ment.

He al­so ac­cused the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion of fail­ing to con­trol crime de­spite sig­nif­i­cant spend­ing on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, once a SoE is de­clared, the Gov­ern­ment must seek par­lia­men­tary ap­proval with­in two weeks to ex­tend it for up to three months.

The mo­tion does not need Op­po­si­tion sup­port, mere­ly a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty, to pass.

De­bate on the ex­ten­sion con­tin­ued in the House up to press time.