Caption: Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. Photo: T&T Parliament
By Prior Beharry
PRIME Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar revealed on Friday that 18 individuals have been formally charged under the provisions of the ongoing state of emergency (SoE).
This figure emerged during a Prime Minister’s Questions in the Lower House marked by a procedural dispute over questioning rules.
The disclosure came in response to a question from Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stuart Young, who sought clarity on the number of detentions and subsequent charges made under the government’s emergency powers.
Young asked: “Would the Prime Minister advise how many persons have been detained via detention orders under the current State of Emergency and out of those persons who have been detained how many charges have been laid against those so detained?”
Providing official data from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS), the prime minister stated, “I am advised by officials… that under the current SoE, there have been 120 preventative detention orders issued, 78 persons have been detained thus far, 42 persons of interest outstanding, and 18 persons charged thus far.”
On September 11, at a news conference, Deputy Commissioner of Police Junior Benjamin said that under the SoE there were 1,775 arrests, the recovery of 118 firearms and significant quantities of narcotics.
On Friday, Young attempted to ask a follow-up question. Instead of recognising him, Speaker of the House Jagdeo Singh intervened to address what he termed “a troubling matter” regarding the parliamentary rules for supplemental questions.
Speaker Singh clarified a distinction in the Standing Orders, saying that while supplemental questions are explicitly permitted for “urgent questions” and “questions on notice,” the rules are silent on their allowance for the dedicated “Prime Minister’s Questions” segment. He pondered aloud why the framers of the rules would have created this explicit difference, suggesting “there is a good reason why.”
“The Standing Orders Committee must meet on this question,” Singh said, adding that such a meeting could resolve the issue in an hour. He declined to unilaterally make a ruling, instead seeking guidance from the committee.
In the interim, the Speaker suggested Young was “not without a remedy,” advising him to file a new question through normal notice or to seek the information via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Young immediately countered, arguing that if the standing orders were unclear, the House should follow the practice of the UK House of Commons, which allows supplementals.
He also contended that the Speaker has the inherent authority to regulate such matters and that a practice of allowing supplementals for PM’s questions had already arisen in the Trinidad and Tobago Parliament.
The debate was left unresolved, with Speaker Singh maintaining his call for a committee meeting to settle the procedural question, leaving the specifics of the state of emergency’s impact temporarily sidelined by the political impasse
