IT was an unfair advantage that the daughter of the late energy minister Franklin Khan was given an exemption to return for her father’s funeral.
This since other citizens of Trinidad and Tobago in similar circumstances were denied exemptions.
So said head of the Citizens Union of Trinidad and Tobago (CUTT) Phillip Edward Alexander in a release on Saturday.
He said, “In the instant, the revelation that the daughter of a former minister is being granted an urgent exemption to bury her father while others in similar circumstances have been denied challenges the decency of the exemption system and creates an unfair advantage to some citizens over others, something that no court should allow its ruling to be used for.”
He said if the courts were going to support Government’s claim that the exemption system was necessary to protect the nation and its citizens from a pandemic, then it must also insist that the exemption be applied even handedly across the board.
Alexander added that the exemption policy must not be used as a punishment or reward system to the benefit of those the Government consider friends.
He called for the exemption system to be an easy to understand system that applies regardless of status, race, class, or political affiliation.
Alexander said, “To do otherwise is to allow the Government to use the ruling of the courts to legitimate governmental wrongdoing and favoritism in the exercise of rights it does not have under our Constitution.”
