Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment is giv­ing the crim­i­nal el­e­ments and cit­i­zens, who may have il­le­gal guns in their pos­ses­sion, a chance to sur­ren­der them dur­ing the State of Emer­gency (SoE).

The reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the SoE in­clude a gun amnesty clause which states any­one who sur­ren­ders any firearm, am­mu­ni­tion or ex­plo­sives shall not be pros­e­cut­ed un­der the Firearms Act or reg­u­la­tion for il­le­gal­ly pur­chas­ing, ac­quir­ing or pos­sess­ing the item pri­or to the time of sur­ren­der.

The reg­u­la­tions al­so de­tail po­lice of­fi­cers’ abil­i­ty to ar­rest es­cap­ing sus­pects with force, if nec­es­sary, and pow­ers the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er has, in­clud­ing to pro­hib­it some­one from be­ing out­doors be­tween cer­tain hours.

Claus­es al­so per­tain to per­sons who make state­ments prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic or­der and those who aid and abet a de­tainee to es­cape.

The SoE was an­nounced by Gov­ern­ment ear­ly Mon­day, af­ter in­for­ma­tion giv­en to the ad­min­is­tra­tion by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, fol­low­ing a spike in mur­ders over last week­end and in­for­ma­tion that reprisal at­tacks by gangs with il­le­gal high-ve­loc­i­ty au­to­mat­ic weapons could en­dan­ger pub­lic safe­ty.

Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Stu­art Young, who is al­so Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime, spoke on the is­sue to­geth­er with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on Mon­day. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was in To­ba­go fol­low­ing the death of his broth­er Alpheus.

The Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2024 which gov­ern the SoE were re­leased on Mon­day night. They were made by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo un­der Sec­tion 7 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

The reg­u­la­tions’ first 21 sec­tions per­tain to de­tails on am­mu­ni­tion, or­ders by the Pres­i­dent, pow­ers en­force­able by the CoP, pub­li­ca­tion of no­tice/or­der un­der the reg­u­la­tions, in­dem­ni­ty and com­pen­sa­tion, pow­er to stop and search, for­fei­ture and dis­pos­al by courts, pow­er to or­der amnesty, state­ments prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic or­der, search­es, pro­ce­dures, oblig­a­tion to stop mo­tor ve­hi­cles, De­fence Force as­sis­tance, du­ra­tion of reg­u­la­tions, pow­er to make de­ten­tion or­ders, place and con­di­tions of de­ten­tion.

Reg­u­la­tion 6, how­ev­er, de­nies cit­i­zens the right to take le­gal ac­tion against the State for any abus­es dur­ing the SoE.

It states: “No per­son shall be li­able to any suit or ac­tion in re­spect of any act done un­der law­ful di­rec­tion and au­thor­i­ty pur­suant to the pro­vi­sions of these Reg­u­la­tions, but the Pres­i­dent may in his dis­cre­tion or­der that com­pen­sa­tion shall be paid out of the pub­lic funds to any per­son up­on be­ing sat­is­fied, that such per­son has suf­fered loss or dam­age by rea­son of the ex­er­cise, of any pow­ers con­ferred by reg­u­la­tion 3, oth­er than sub-reg­u­la­tion (2)(j) there­of and reg­u­la­tion 4.” (See page 6)

An­oth­er nine sec­tions on pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion con­cern re­view by the SoE Tri­bunal, es­tab­lish­ment of the tri­bunal, ref­er­ence to it, and its du­ties and pro­ce­dures, and re­vo­ca­tion of de­ten­tion or­ders.

Among claus­es un­der the reg­u­la­tions, a sec­tion ti­tled “Pow­er to Or­der Amnesty,” no per­son who sur­ren­ders any firearm, am­mu­ni­tion or ex­plo­sive dur­ing any pe­ri­od pre­scribed shall be pros­e­cut­ed un­der the Firearms Act or reg­u­la­tion for il­le­gal­ly pur­chas­ing, ac­quir­ing or pos­sess­ing such firearm, am­mu­ni­tion or ex­plo­sive pri­or to the time of such sur­ren­der or at that time.

On stop and search ex­er­cis­es, a per­son dri­ving or in con­trol of any ve­hi­cle in mo­tion on a road shall stop that ve­hi­cle on be­ing re­quired to do so by a po­lice of­fi­cer in uni­form.

An of­fi­cer will be able to stop and search any per­son found in any street or oth­er pub­lic place if they rea­son­ably sus­pect per­sons of hav­ing any firearm, am­mu­ni­tion or ex­plo­sive con­trary to reg­u­la­tion 8, or of hav­ing com­mit­ted or be­ing about to com­mit any oth­er of­fence prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty or or­der.

Of­fi­cers, act­ing un­der sub-reg­u­la­tion (1), may seize and de­tain any firearm, am­mu­ni­tion, ex­plo­sive or oth­er ar­ti­cle found in a per­son’s pos­ses­sion, cus­tody or con­trol.

Notwith­stand­ing any rule of law to the con­trary, an of­fi­cer may ar­rest with­out war­rant any per­son whom he sus­pects has act­ed, or is act­ing, or is about to act in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty or to pub­lic or­der or to have com­mit­ted or is com­mit­ting or is about to com­mit an of­fence against the reg­u­la­tions. Po­lice may take steps to use such force for af­fect­ing the ar­rest or pre­vent­ing the es­cape of such per­son.

On mak­ing state­ments prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic or­der, no per­son shall:

En­deav­our, whether oral­ly or oth­er­wise, to in­flu­ence pub­lic opin­ion in a man­ner like­ly to be prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty and or­der; or do any act or have any ar­ti­cle in his pos­ses­sion with a view to mak­ing or fa­cil­i­tat­ing the mak­ing of any such en­deav­our.

Fur­ther, any per­son in re­spect of whom a de­ten­tion or­der is in force may be ar­rest­ed with­out war­rant by any po­lice of­fi­cer and may be de­tained. A per­son in cus­tody who es­capes or at­tempts to es­cape com­mits an of­fence, “and any per­son who aids, abets or as­sists a per­son in law­ful cus­tody to es­cape from that cus­tody, or who har­bours, as­sists or com­forts any per­son who has es­caped such cus­tody, com­mits an of­fence.”

Al­so, a per­son com­mits an of­fence if they con­sort with/or are found in the com­pa­ny of

an­oth­er per­son, who, with­out law­ful au­thor­i­ty, has in his pos­ses­sion any firearm, am­mu­ni­tion or ex­plo­sive in cir­cum­stances which raise a rea­son­able pre­sump­tion that he in­tends or is about to act/has re­cent­ly act­ed with such oth­er per­son in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic or­der or pub­lic safe­ty.

CoP’s pow­ers to pro­hib­it ...

The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is au­tho­rised to

ex­er­cise the fol­low­ing pow­ers un­der the SoE:

(a) To pro­hib­it or re­strict the pos­ses­sion or use by any per­son or body of per­sons of any spec­i­fied ar­ti­cles;

(b) To im­pose on any per­son any re­stric­tions in re­spect of his em­ploy­ment or busi­ness, in re­spect of his place of res­i­dence, and in re­spect of his as­so­ci­a­tion or com­mu­ni­ca­tion with oth­er per­sons;

(c) To pro­hib­it any per­son from be­ing out of doors be­tween such hours as may be spec­i­fied, ex­cept un­der the au­thor­i­ty of a writ­ten per­mit grant­ed by such au­thor­i­ty or per­son as may be spec­i­fied;

(d) To re­quire any per­son to no­ti­fy his move­ments in such man­ner, at such times and to such au­thor­i­ty or per­son as may be spec­i­fied;

(e) To re­strict any per­son from trav­el­ling ex­cept in ac­cor­dance with per­mis­sion giv­en to him by such au­thor­i­ty or per­son as may be spec­i­fied;

(f) To re­quire any per­son to quit any place or area or not to vis­it any place or area.

Or­ders un­der the reg­u­la­tions may al­so au­tho­rise for the “in­ter­ro­ga­tion of com­put­ers and elec­tron­ic de­vices seized.”