Attorney at law and Member of Parliament for Laventille West, Kareem Marcelle, is raising serious concerns about the proposed Zones of Special Operation bill, warning that it gives unfettered discretion to the Prime Minister with little to no safeguards.
00:00Marcel says the bill allows the Prime Minister to unilaterally declare any area a hotspot without clear criteria or oversight, a move he describes as dangerous and open to abuse.
00:13There is no constitutional safeguards and it is a very, very dangerous bill.
00:19And I'm not imputing by any means that that is what the Prime Minister would do, but I'm saying it is an elected, you are talking about an elected politician having an unfettered discretion.
00:30As to which members of which sections of society get to leave their house, which members of society have their constitutional rights suspended with no safeguard whatsoever.
00:40He also takes issue with the creation of a joint police military task force, noting that under the bill, members of the defense force would be given the same powers as police officers,
00:52including the power to arrest despite the absence of accountability mechanisms.
00:57He points out that while citizens can report police misconduct to the police complaints authority, no similar body exists for the military.
01:06Together, they can decide that they are going to cordon off a zone or a community for up to 24 hours, but there is no limit in terms of if they are to cordon off,
01:17let's say they want to cordon off Zimbabwe today and 24 hours expires, which means that no one can enter Zimbabwe or leave Zimbabwe during that 24 hours.
01:28Marcel is now appealing to independent senators to carefully examine the legislation when it comes before parliament,
01:35urging them to critically assess its implications before voting on the bill in its current form.
01:41Forget member of parliament, forget any politician. As a citizen, I would hope that the independent bench seriously consider the concerns that these issues raise and vote accordingly.
01:52I would think that any reasonable citizen who understands the constitutional rights, understands the safeguards,
01:58understands the risk and the dangers associated with this would vehemently objectate and simply say no.
02:04What happens then is that the Honourable Attorney General, so the bill will fail in its current form.
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