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Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day is warn­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go risks weak­en­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions if emer­gency pow­ers are re­peat­ed­ly used as the pri­ma­ry re­sponse to crime.

Pan­day is­sued the cau­tion fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­c­la­ra­tion of a new State of Emer­gency (SoE), ar­gu­ing that while cit­i­zens are un­der­stand­ably fear­ful of ris­ing vi­o­lence, emer­gency pow­ers can­not re­place a com­pre­hen­sive crime strat­e­gy.

In a state­ment on so­cial me­dia, Pan­day ac­knowl­edged that crime has erod­ed pub­lic con­fi­dence and left com­mu­ni­ties anx­ious.