Scotland: PNM will not support further extension of SoE

Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land says the Op­po­si­tion will not sup­port any at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to fur­ther ex­tend the State of Emer­gency (SoE) be­yond Sep­tem­ber 17, main­tain­ing that its po­si­tion is ground­ed in an as­sess­ment of the mea­sure’s ef­fec­tive­ness and a com­mit­ment to prin­ci­ple.

Scot­land made the po­si­tion clear when asked whether the Op­po­si­tion ex­pect­ed the Gov­ern­ment to al­low the SoE to ex­pire rather than seek an­oth­er ex­ten­sion based on the da­ta avail­able at the end of the cur­rent pe­ri­od.

Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Gov­ern­ment can ex­tend a SoE for up to six months us­ing its sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. How­ev­er, any ex­ten­sion be­yond six months re­quires a three-fifths spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty in both the House and Sen­ate. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, the Gov­ern­ment may al­low the cur­rent SoE to ex­pire and ad­vise the Pres­i­dent to pro­claim a new one, ef­fec­tive­ly re­set­ting the con­sti­tu­tion­al time­line.