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For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young has de­fend­ed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion’s han­dling of bor­der clo­sures dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, dis­miss­ing crit­i­cisms by for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan as “un­ac­cept­able” and po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader in Port-of-Spain, Young re­ject­ed Ram­lo­gan’s call for the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) and two for­mer min­is­ters to “bow their heads in shame” fol­low­ing a Court of Ap­peal rul­ing ear­li­er this week.

The rul­ing found that the State’s fail­ure to pub­lish ex­emp­tion cri­te­ria dur­ing the pan­dem­ic had breached the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of two women.