The Pandora Conundrum... (On the State of Emergency)

Sweeping your opponent from power by promising to curb runaway violent crime is one thing, actually being able to deliver on the promise is something else entirely. The current administration was always aware of the state of the crime situation in the nation, yet its members felt confident enough to pledge to the electorate that should they be given the mandate, their team would solve the problem and put the scourge back in the box.



Fifteen months later things are as bad as they have ever been on the crime front, with things devolving to the point that even the very protective forces required to achieve the stated reductions are themselves threatening to march against the government.
 With the situation threatening to spin out of control and with very few options left at her disposal, the Prime Minister called her Cabinet together and after a marathon meeting announced to the nation that the President had been asked to declare a State of Emergency so that the army and other resources could be brought into the equation.



Many have been calling on the government for firm and decisive action and like it or not, this is it. Based on the violent reality that life in T&T has become, it would be disingenuous to say that if I was in Government and based on the drastic upswing in the numbers for murders and violent crime since 2001 I would not have done the same thing. Sold to the population as being limited in scope, this state of emergency we are told is intended for the crime 'hot spots' throughout the country where the most violent crimes have been occurring, begging the question as to why were there no other options available?

Section Eight of Part Three of Chapter one of the Constitution gives the President certain powers where the declaration of a State of Emergency is concerned, and once he is satisfied that the necessary criteria have been met he can do so unrestrained.
 Bear in mind that any such declaration is no joking matter, and for a country like ours to invoke that subsection of the Constitution risks harming the country's international reputation and the economy by extension. The Prime Minister and her government had to know that and to them this has to be an all in bet, because regardless of how it is spun, suspending the Constitution for an internal matter will always be seen as an admission of failure to deal with the same crime wave they promised to have the answers to while on the campaign trail.

Public opinion since the announcement has come down around Party lines as expected, with the Opposition scrambling for reasons as to why this will not work. In their shoes I would be guided to voice my opposition on legal and civil rights grounds and wait the government out. I cannot see the sense in predicting the outcome of something that is hard to predict and if anything the government must know that they are walking a political tight rope with this one. For their part the PNM Opposition oversaw the largest blood letting in our nation's history, with more people dying violently in our country over the last decade than in countries that were actively engaged in war. Now is certainly not the time for cheap politicking, but Dr. Rowley does not seem to have anything other than reactionary politics in his bag of tricks.

My concern will always be that basic civil and human rights are not trampled unnecessarily as this is being carried out. No one declares a State of Emergency just to have one, and it is clear that the protective services intend to cary out operations that require wartime powers. That in itself will always be reason to pause, but I am aware enough to know that if something substantial was not done at this point in time we risked losing control of the country to the underworld permanently. I am also knowledgable enough of the consequences of unrestrained power in the hands of the few, and what thinking people need to monitor now is how this operation is carried out, what exactly is the objective and how long do these measures remain in effect. It is clear that at some point we were always going to have to push back, but regardless of the justifications behind this Constitutional interruption, we the people need to ensure that we come out of this as a nation ruled by law.