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Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has crit­i­cised De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge over com­ments sug­gest­ing that lim­it­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al rights is “a small price to pay” if the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion helps re­move il­le­gal firearms from com­mu­ni­ties.

Sturge made the re­mark dur­ing Wednes­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on law re­form. In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia, Beck­les said while the Op­po­si­tion con­demns vi­o­lent crime and sup­ports firm ac­tion against gangs and il­le­gal weapons, crime-fight­ing must be done law­ful­ly.

“The idea that con­sti­tu­tion­al rights are a ‘small price to pay’ for se­cu­ri­ty is deeply dan­ger­ous,” Beck­les said, stress­ing that rights are not op­tion­al priv­i­leges but the foun­da­tion of democ­ra­cy and the rule of law.