The law allows police to detain citizens for a maximum of 48 hours without breaching constitutional rights.
According to Attorney Om Lalla, any extension beyond that time requires judicial approval under special circumstances.
“Police can only detain you either under warrant or suspicion of a crime. They cannot just detain you for the purposes of interviewing you or that they suspect that you can assist in questioning. That’s a misconception and people have to also understand that when you are arrested or detained or police take you in their custody and you cannot leave, you have a right not only to remain silent but for legal representation.”
Mr. Lalla says that people need to understand what their rights are in terms of arrest, detention and custody. However, he makes the point that one should not be confrontational with the police, for instance, where people attempt to videotape an incident.
He says that, despite international acceptance of cell phone footage to determine and identify wrongdoing, in some instances one must be careful because it may come down to one person’s word against several police officers.
“People have to be aware that in spite of Justice Seepersad’s ruling and in spite of the fact that there’s no prohibition from videotaping, you’re still going to encounter police officers who will tell you, ‘Put away your phone, you can’t, I will charge you’ and take an abusive approach towards you. And it’s important not to be confrontational with the police, especially if they are being confrontational, because my whole career I’ve seen police officers in situations sometimes deciding, ‘Well okay, you don’t want to do this, I’m going to charge you for obstructing justice.'”
Mr. Lalla said the long and short of the matter is to become familiar with your rights to avoid a bad run-in with the law.