Young: Special Operations Bill could create a ‘police state’

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill to sup­press con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, warn­ing that the leg­is­la­tion could turn Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to what he de­scribed as a “po­lice State.”

Young made the claims dur­ing yes­ter­day’s de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, as the Gov­ern­ment de­fend­ed leg­is­la­tion that would es­tab­lish sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts, six in Trinidad and one in To­ba­go, and pro­vide a le­gal frame­work for spe­cial op­er­a­tions in­volv­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and, where nec­es­sary, the De­fence Force.

Crit­i­cis­ing the pace at which the bill was brought be­fore Par­lia­ment, Young de­scribed it as a “hus­tled de­bate,” say­ing MPs had been giv­en less than 48 hours to con­sid­er what he char­ac­terised as far-reach­ing leg­is­la­tion.