Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is still ex­press­ing grave con­cern about the con­tin­ued ex­is­tence of a gun amnesty clause in the State of Emer­gency (SoE) reg­u­la­tions, de­spite Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds say­ing it is not some­thing Gov­ern­ment is pur­su­ing.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day de­mand­ed that Gov­ern­ment ex­plain why it was in­clud­ed in the reg­u­la­tions if it was not meant to be op­er­a­tionalised.

Sec­tion 11 of the reg­u­la­tion states, “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.”

“Reg­u­la­tion 11 is un­con­sti­tu­tion­al,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said dur­ing de­bate to ex­tend the SoE by three months.

She said while the reg­u­la­tions give cer­tain “dra­con­ian pow­ers” to law en­force­ment, “you can­not go now and in­ter­fere with, or tres­pass on pow­ers giv­en con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly to cer­tain of­fice hold­ers.”

“Reg­u­la­tion 11 seeks to do ex­act­ly that, to tres­pass up­on the pow­ers of the in­de­pen­dent of­fice of the DPP (Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions),” she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the DPP has ex­clu­sive au­thor­i­ty to in­sti­tute, con­tin­ue or dis­con­tin­ue crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings un­der Sec­tion 90 of the Con­sti­tu­tion. She said Reg­u­la­tion 11 di­rect­ly con­tra­dicts that.

“This is very con­cern­ing be­cause Sec­tion 90 is not just a pro­vi­sion in our Con­sti­tu­tion, it is a deeply en­trenched pro­vi­sion in our Con­sti­tu­tion. It can­not be tak­en away by way of a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty, nor can it be tak­en away by emer­gency pow­ers reg­u­la­tions, that can­not hap­pen,” she said, as her Op­po­si­tion MPs thumped their desks in ap­proval.

“So, by grant­i­ng im­mu­ni­ty by reg­u­la­tion 11, Gov­ern­ment is over­step­ping its bounds and in­ter­fer­ing with the DPPs pow­ers,” she con­tin­ued.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said this rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers. She said Reg­u­la­tion 11 al­so un­der­mines pub­lic safe­ty.

“By grant­i­ng im­mu­ni­ty to in­di­vid­u­als who pos­sess il­le­gal firearms, Reg­u­la­tion 11 jeop­ar­dis­es na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, it con­tra­dicts the pub­lic in­ter­est in pros­e­cut­ing of­fend­ers, and this can lead to an in­crease in gun vi­o­lence and cre­ate a cli­mate of im­puni­ty for those who vi­o­late firearm laws,” she ex­plained.

Speak­ing on a ra­dio pro­gramme on Sun­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Hinds said gun amnesties have not worked in the past.

“First of all, let me tell you that the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion as stat­ed has not been one for at­tempts at amnesty. We be­lieve that our law en­force­ment agen­cies have the law, the Con­sti­tu­tion, the man­pow­er, the re­sources with in­tel­li­gence to go and find the guns,” Hinds said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­knowl­edged yes­ter­day that Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters have said the gun amnesty pol­i­cy was not op­er­a­tional. But look­ing at Stu­art Young, who was act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al dur­ing the de­c­la­ra­tion of the SoE, she said, “Go back and read the law and tell us why did you put this in place when this is clear­ly a tres­pass of the role and func­tion of the DPP.

“How did it get in there? Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, how did you put that reg­u­la­tion there? And I ask again, is there any se­ri­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to any Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial hold­ing a pro­hib­it­ed weapon and is this a bligh to al­low that of­fi­cial to hand it in and dis­ap­pear?”

Mean­while, Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein, who con­tributed ear­li­er in the de­bate, said the SoE is sim­ply a tem­po­rary sup­pres­sion of crime for po­lit­i­cal gain.

“When this SoE is over, what you think is go­ing to hap­pen? When all those gang lead­ers out on the street, what is go­ing to hap­pen?” he asked.

Ho­sein said Calvin “Tyson” Lee, a re­put­ed gang leader whose ac­tiv­i­ties, ac­cord­ing to me­dia re­ports, trig­gered the SoE, is cur­rent­ly un­der house ar­rest. How­ev­er, he ques­tioned what would hap­pen to him on the ex­pi­ra­tion of the SoE.

“When 6ixx Dan or Tyson house ar­rest is over, what hap­pens? Be­cause this SoE won’t be in ef­fect for over six months. We are go­ing to cause an even more ag­gra­vat­ed sit­u­a­tion, you have to deal with the root caus­es of crime,” he said.

Ho­sein asked why the po­lice had not laid any se­ri­ous charges against gang lead­ers yet.

“You can’t just lock up peo­ple for three months and say we did well. What they are try­ing to do is sup­press crime for this very short pe­ri­od just so they can go on a po­lit­i­cal cam­paign, mount a plat­form and say we dealt with crime,” Ho­sein said.

The ex­ten­sion of the SoE was even­tu­al­ly agreed to by a unan­i­mous vote at the end of the de­bate.