Senior counsel and former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj believes a state of emergency (SoE) should not be used as a tool for fighting crime.

Speaking at the Assembly of Southern Lawyers (ASL) luncheon at the C3 Centre in Corinth near San Fernando, to honour his 60th year at the Bar, Maharaj told the audience, “In 2011 there was a public emergency in Trinidad and Tobago, persons were arrested and I took the position then as a lawyer that a state of emergency should not be called or should not be used as a tool for fighting crime.”

He said, “A state of emergency is an exceptional situation and if you have the Police Service functioning, the courts functioning, all the public institutions functioning, you cannot use a state of emergency because, when you create a state of emergency, you suspend the enjoyment of fundamental rights guaranteed in Sections 4 and 5 of the Constitution.”