Mick­ela Pan­day

We should be very care­ful about the pow­ers we give the State. Es­pe­cial­ly when those pow­ers are be­ing pre­sent­ed to us in the name of some­thing no­body can rea­son­ably op­pose: fight­ing crime.

That is pre­cise­ly when Par­lia­ment must be most vig­i­lant. Be­cause the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, 2026 is not mere­ly about fight­ing crim­i­nals. It gives the State pow­ers to close com­mu­ni­ties, re­strict move­ment, im­pose cur­fews, es­tab­lish road­blocks, con­duct war­rant­less search­es and de­tain peo­ple un­der spe­cial op­er­a­tions. And I think we should be very wor­ried.

The State of Emer­gency has end­ed. Now ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers are seek­ing a place in or­di­nary law. So we have to ask, Who Guards the Guards?

The Bill cre­ates sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts and al­lows ar­eas to be de­clared “closed ar­eas” when se­ri­ous crime, gangs, weapons and pub­lic safe­ty is­sues ex­ist, and or­di­nary law en­force­ment is con­sid­ered in­suf­fi­cient.

A com­mu­ni­ty can be closed. Peo­ple can re­quire per­mits to en­ter or leave. A cur­few can be im­posed. Road­blocks and cor­dons can be es­tab­lished. And with­in that area, po­lice can search peo­ple, ve­hi­cles and places with­out a war­rant on rea­son­able sus­pi­cion that an of­fence has been, is be­ing, or is about to be com­mit­ted.

Those are ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers. So the ques­tion can­not sim­ply be, “Does the coun­try need stronger ac­tion against crime?” Of course it does.

The ques­tion is, what price are we ask­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to pay for it? And are the safe­guards strong enough?

Con­sid­er who makes the de­ci­sion to close an area. Clause 11 places the for­mal pow­er in the hands of the Pres­i­dent. Clause 14 sim­i­lar­ly pro­vides for the Pres­i­dent to im­pose a cur­few. But the Con­sti­tu­tion es­tab­lish­es the gen­er­al rule that the Pres­i­dent acts on Cab­i­net or min­is­te­r­i­al ad­vice un­less the Con­sti­tu­tion or an­oth­er law pro­vides oth­er­wise.

So the words “the Pres­i­dent” should not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be treat­ed as an in­de­pen­dent check on Ex­ec­u­tive pow­er. Where is the in­de­pen­dent safe­guard be­fore a com­mu­ni­ty is closed and ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers be­gin?

Then there is the ques­tion of time.

The Bill it­self has a two-year sun­set clause. But that does not mean an in­di­vid­ual com­mu­ni­ty can on­ly re­main a closed area for a spec­i­fied num­ber of days. Clause 11 con­tains no 30-day, 90-day or oth­er max­i­mum pe­ri­od for an in­di­vid­ual de­c­la­ra­tion. Par­lia­ment can an­nul the Or­der and the Pres­i­dent can re­voke it, but there is no fixed statu­to­ry ex­piry for each closed-area or­der.

That mat­ters. The ear­li­er ZOSO leg­is­la­tion placed ex­press lim­its on the du­ra­tion of a zone, in­clud­ing a max­i­mum of 180 days, while cur­fews were lim­it­ed to 72 hours and cor­dons to 24 hours. Those lim­its are not sim­ply tech­ni­cal de­tails. They are the bound­aries Par­lia­ment puts around ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­er. So why have those par­tic­u­lar lim­its dis­ap­peared?

And then there are the safe­guards that sound stronger than they are when you read the fine print. The Bill pro­vides for body-worn cam­eras dur­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions, but on­ly “as far as is pos­si­ble hav­ing re­gard to avail­able re­sources.” The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er has said just over 100 body cam­eras are cur­rent­ly op­er­a­tional, while the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has said the Gov­ern­ment “will work with what it has.” If body cam­eras are a safe­guard against abuse, they can­not be­come a safe­guard that ex­ists on­ly when re­sources per­mit.

The Bill al­so al­lows ex­cep­tions to the re­quire­ment for weapons and bal­lis­tic sig­na­tures to be reg­is­tered be­fore op­er­a­tions, where the Com­mis­sion­er or Chief of De­fence Staff di­rects oth­er­wise. These are pre­cise­ly the de­tails Par­lia­ment must in­ter­ro­gate.

There is an­oth­er un­com­fort­able ques­tion.

The Bill gives politi­cians, in­clud­ing the Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter, Cab­i­net mem­bers, MPs, THA mem­bers and mu­nic­i­pal coun­cil­lors, ex­emp­tions from the en­try and ex­it re­stric­tions ap­ply­ing to oth­ers in a closed area. Po­lice and De­fence Force per­son­nel are ex­press­ly ex­empt while on du­ty or trav­el­ling to or from du­ty.

Why should the statu­to­ry ex­emp­tion for po­lit­i­cal of­fice­hold­ers be broad­er? And if a com­mu­ni­ty is al­ready un­der ex­tra­or­di­nary re­stric­tions, should par­lia­men­tary scruti­ny come af­ter those pow­ers have tak­en ef­fect? Un­der the Bill, the grounds for a closed-area Or­der are sent to the Speak­er with­in sev­en days and the House can an­nul the Or­der.

That is over­sight. But it is over­sight af­ter the door has al­ready opened. By then, the com­mu­ni­ty may al­ready be closed, res­i­dents may al­ready need per­mits, a cur­few may al­ready be op­er­at­ing and war­rant­less search pow­ers may al­ready be in use.

That is why this de­bate mat­ters.

We all want safer streets. We all want crim­i­nals pur­sued, guns re­moved and com­mu­ni­ties pro­tect­ed. But a Gov­ern­ment must be judged not on­ly by the pow­ers it is will­ing to use against crim­i­nals. It must al­so be judged by the lim­its it is will­ing to place on it­self.

Be­cause the State of Emer­gency has end­ed. The ques­tion be­fore Par­lia­ment now is whether ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers should fol­low us in­to or­di­nary life. Crime is se­ri­ous. Rights are se­ri­ous too. And be­fore we ask law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to live un­der ex­cep­tion­al pow­ers un­til 2028, Par­lia­ment must an­swer one sim­ple ques­tion: Is this re­al­ly the so­lu­tion to crime, or are we slow­ly be­com­ing ac­cus­tomed to giv­ing the State pow­ers that should nev­er be­come or­di­nary?

Mick­ela Pan­day is the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and at­tor­ney at law