The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs has an­nounced the re­moval of Reg­u­la­tion 11 from the 2024 Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, ef­fec­tive­ly re­scind­ing the gun amnesty pro­vi­sion it fa­cil­i­tat­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease is­sued on Thurs­day night, Cab­i­net de­cid­ed to re­move Reg­u­la­tion 11, ex­plain­ing that it was nev­er put in­to ac­tion, as all firearms re­cov­ered dur­ing the State of Emer­gency (SoE) were seized by po­lice.

The state­ment fur­ther clar­i­fied that the rapid­ly evolv­ing cir­cum­stances lead­ing to the im­po­si­tion of the SoE in De­cem­ber prompt­ed the in­clu­sion of Reg­u­la­tion 11, which was drawn from the prece­dents of past SoE reg­u­la­tions in 2011 and 1990.

“Cab­i­net was ad­vised that in the fast-evolv­ing cir­cum­stances of the 29/30th De­cem­ber 2024, Reg­u­la­tion 11 had been lift­ed from the pre­vi­ous State of Emer­gency prece­dents in 2011 and 1990. It was nei­ther op­er­a­tionalised by a pe­ri­od be­ing pre­scribed nor an Or­der made in ac­cor­dance with the 2024 Emer­gency Reg­u­la­tions and ac­cord­ing­ly, Reg­u­la­tion 11 nev­er took ef­fect. Fur­ther, all firearms re­cov­ered to date un­der the 2024 State of Emer­gency have been as a re­sult of seizures by law en­force­ment and not through the sur­ren­der of firearms,” the state­ment said.

The amend­ment was of­fi­cial­ly con­firmed in Le­gal No­tice No 15 of the Gazette dat­ed Jan­u­ary 16.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the amend­ment, Op­po­si­tion MP Sad­dam Ho­sein re­called his con­tri­bu­tion to Mon­day’s par­lia­men­tary de­bate to ex­tend the SoE by three months, in which he flagged the sim­i­lar­i­ties be­tween the 2011 and 2024 reg­u­la­tions, in­clud­ing a per­sis­tent er­ror that was copied from the pre­vi­ous leg­is­la­tion.

He said de­spite his claims, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who was al­so serv­ing as act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at the time the SoE was de­clared, de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tion.

“Be­cause the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Barataria/San Juan is not some­one who can­not read. He must have done a com­par­i­son be­tween the 2011 Reg­u­la­tions and the 2024 Reg­u­la­tions, and to come here and try to mis­lead the pop­u­la­tion that it is a sim­ple cut-and-paste is ab­solute­ly un­true. But the 1990 Reg­u­la­tions and the 2011 Reg­u­la­tions, which I have in my hand, Madame Speak­er, are a copy,” Young had said.

Ho­sein yes­ter­day point­ed out that Young in­formed Par­lia­ment that the Pres­i­dent was no­ti­fied at 1.37 am on De­cem­ber 30 to de­clare the SoE, around the same time the Prime Min­is­ter host­ed a “par­ty” in To­ba­go.

“It com­pelling­ly in­di­cates that the Cab­i­net met, ac­tive­ly con­sid­ered the gun amnesty, and made a de­ci­sion af­ter mid­night on De­cem­ber 30, 2024, to agree to a gun amnesty, with Cab­i­net be­ing ad­vised by Stu­art Young as Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al,” Ho­sein ar­gued.

“Af­ter ac­tive Cab­i­net con­sid­er­a­tion and the Gun Amnesty Reg­u­la­tion be­ing pub­lished, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 16 days lat­er, now re­tracts this po­si­tion and amend­ed the 2024 Reg­u­la­tions to re­voke the reg­u­la­tion that pro­vides the gun amnesty. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al now in­di­cates that the gun amnesty is not Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy af­ter Cab­i­net agreed to it when de­cid­ing to im­ple­ment the State of Emer­gency. I an­tic­i­pate that fur­ther amend­ments will have to be made, as there is an­oth­er er­ror in Reg­u­la­tion 20, as it refers to the “Com­man­der of the De­fence Force.” The De­fence Act, Chap. 14:01, speaks to the of­fice of ‘Chief of De­fence Staff” and not the “Com­man­der of the De­fence Force’” he added.

Ho­sein al­so ac­cused Young of hypocrisy and crit­i­cised At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour for his fail­ure to act, call­ing him a “guilty by­stander” to his col­league’s in­com­pe­tence.

“The Gov­ern­ment has been caught red-hand­ed in copy­ing sec­tions of the 2011 State of Emer­gency and seek­ing to jus­ti­fy its im­ple­men­ta­tion for its rushed State of Emer­gency in 2025. The Row­ley/Young-led PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion has demon­strat­ed in­ep­ti­tude and in­ef­fec­tive­ness in deal­ing with the is­sue of crime and with no prac­ti­ca­ble or sub­stan­tial reme­dies and they must demit of­fice forth­with,” Ho­sein con­clud­ed.

Just Wednes­day, dur­ing a mix­er for the me­dia at Bal­isi­er House, Young re­it­er­at­ed that Gov­ern­ment was on­ly in­flu­enced by pre­vi­ous SoEs, in­sist­ing they had not repli­cat­ed them en­tire­ly.

“A few weeks ago, when we as the Gov­ern­ment, in very dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances, had to de­cide what were the re­stric­tions we were go­ing to put, we were very thought­ful and con­sid­ered in the ex­trac­tion of what ex­ist­ed in 1990 and 2011 in those States of Emer­gency,” Young said.

The gun amnesty pro­vi­sion had been part of Reg­u­la­tion 12 in the 2011 Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, which stip­u­lat­ed: “No per­son who sur­ren­ders any firearm, am­mu­ni­tion or ex­plo­sive dur­ing any pe­ri­od that is pre­scribed, and oth­er­wise in ac­cor­dance with an Or­der to sur­ren­der, 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.”