The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) has bro­ken its si­lence on the State of Emer­gency and the Gov­ern­ment's ban on protests near key state in­sti­tu­tions, ques­tion­ing whether the re­stric­tions are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly jus­ti­fied and call­ing for ev­i­dence to sup­port con­tin­ued emer­gency pow­ers.

In a state­ment on Thurs­day, LATT ac­knowl­edged the se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges which led to the March 2, 2026 State of Emer­gency but warned emer­gency pow­ers are in­tend­ed for ex­cep­tion­al and tem­po­rary cir­cum­stances and do not pro­vide an un­lim­it­ed li­cence to re­strict fun­da­men­tal rights.

The as­so­ci­a­tion raised con­cerns about the Emer­gency Pow­ers (Pro­hi­bi­tion of Pub­lic Protests and Demon­stra­tions) Or­der 2026, which bars protests with­in a 500-me­tre ra­dius of 15 lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing ma­jor cen­tres of gov­ern­men­tal and ju­di­cial au­thor­i­ty.