Soyi­ni Grey

Se­nior Re­porter

soyi­ni.grey@guardian.co.tt

One of the first things you need to know about the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill 2026 is how your life could be af­fect­ed if your area is des­ig­nat­ed a “closed area”.

The Bill es­tab­lish­es sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts across Trinidad and To­ba­go, with To­ba­go be­ing the sev­enth dis­trict. The dis­tricts are named in the Bill. Dis­trict 1 com­pris­es Port of Spain, Diego Mar­tin and San Juan-Laven­tille, while Dis­trict 2 com­pris­es Ari­ma and Tu­na­puna-Pi­ar­co.

The Bill al­lows na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces to des­ig­nate an area with­in any of these dis­tricts as a closed area.

Once an area is des­ig­nat­ed, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice must ap­point a Head of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions from among po­lice of­fi­cers, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter. The per­son ap­point­ed must be at least the rank of su­per­in­ten­dent.

As the Bill al­lows for joint mil­i­tary pa­trols, the Chief of De­fence Staff can ap­point a Head of Mil­i­tary As­sis­tance for the area. That per­son must hold at least the rank of ma­jor.

In to­tal, there could be up to sev­en Heads of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions and Heads of Mil­i­tary As­sis­tance, or few­er if one per­son is placed in charge of sev­er­al dis­tricts.

What does this mean for you?

If you live in a closed area, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces can use cor­dons and/or cur­fews to de­mar­cate the area as closed.

The bound­aries must be pub­lished in the Gazette, and no­tices must be placed in and around the af­fect­ed area to en­sure the pub­lic is rea­son­ably aware of the des­ig­na­tion. Cur­fews must al­so be gazetted.

Un­less you are a se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial, judge or mem­ber of the po­lice or De­fence Force, you will need a per­mit to move around with­in the closed area.

Peo­ple out­side those cat­e­gories must ap­ply to the Head of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions or Head of Mil­i­tary As­sis­tance for a per­mit al­low­ing them to move around with­out be­ing sub­ject to sanc­tions.

The per­mit can be with­drawn in writ­ing at any time.

Vi­o­la­tions car­ry sig­nif­i­cant penal­ties. A per­son found guilty sum­mar­i­ly can be fined $50,000 and sen­tenced to one year in prison.

War­rant­less search­es

Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces can search your prop­er­ty or premis­es with­out a war­rant, but on­ly if they have what the Bill de­scribes as “rea­son­able sus­pi­cion that an of­fence is in the course of be­ing com­mit­ted, has been com­mit­ted or is about to be com­mit­ted.”

The search­es must be wit­nessed by the own­er or oc­cu­pi­er, and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel must make a rea­son­able ef­fort to en­sure that the search­es are con­duct­ed un­der ob­ser­va­tion.

Any items seized must be con­sid­ered rel­e­vant to “pre­vent­ing or con­trol­ling a pub­lic dis­or­der that is like­ly to be of sub­stan­tial val­ue...to the in­ves­tiga­tive of any of­fence.”

Items seized must be list­ed and a re­ceipt pro­vid­ed to the own­er or oc­cu­pi­er. They must al­so be se­cured.

The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice can de­cide to re­lease items that are no longer con­sid­ered to have ev­i­den­tial val­ue. An own­er can al­so ap­ply to a mag­is­trate for the re­turn of seized items.

Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and ar­rests

With­in a closed area, law en­force­ment of­fi­cers can ap­proach any­one and re­quest their full name, in­clud­ing any alias­es, and ad­dress.

Fail­ure to pro­vide the in­for­ma­tion, or pro­vid­ing false in­for­ma­tion that is sub­se­quent­ly dis­cov­ered, can re­sult in a $20,000 fine.

If you are ar­rest­ed, the Bill pro­vides that women must be searched by fe­male of­fi­cers.

The ar­rest­ing of­fi­cer must ex­plain in plain lan­guage the rea­son for the ar­rest. The per­son ar­rest­ed must then be brought be­fore a mag­is­trate as soon as pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine whether the ar­rest is jus­ti­fied.

If the mag­is­trate de­ter­mines that the per­son can be held, they can re­main in a po­lice sta­tion for up to 48 hours, af­ter which they must be brought be­fore the High Court.

If a High Court judge de­ter­mines that the per­son should be de­tained for longer be­cause the ev­i­dence re­quires it, the per­son should be in­formed of the length of the de­ten­tion. Oth­er­wise, the per­son must be re­leased.

De­tained per­sons are en­ti­tled to vis­its from their part­ner or a fam­i­ly mem­ber, at­tor­ney or med­ical prac­ti­tion­er. If the med­ical prac­ti­tion­er is not pro­vid­ed by the State, the cost must be borne by the de­tained per­son.

Body cam­eras

Both po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers are re­quired to wear body cam­eras while on pa­trol in closed ar­eas.

How­ev­er, the Bill leaves the specifics of their use to be de­ter­mined by the re­spec­tive branch­es of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices.

This means de­tails con­cern­ing da­ta col­lec­tion, when cam­eras can be switched on or off and whether of­fi­cers must in­form mem­bers of the pub­lic that they are be­ing record­ed are not clear­ly set out in the Bill.

How­ev­er, sev­er­al agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and Of­fice of the Om­buds­man, will have ac­cess to the record­ings, ac­cord­ing to the Bill.

The Act will re­main in force for two years from the date of its com­mence­ment.