Attorney General John Jeremie SC has rejected claims that the Government’s new Zones of Special Operations (ZOSO) Bill breaches the separation of powers or amounts to a hidden State of Emergency.
This, as The Law Reform (Zones of Special Operations) (Special Security and Community Development Measures) Bill, 2026, was successfully passed in the Lower House early on Saturday morning, with 27 votes for, 11 votes against, and no abstentions – more than enough to pass the Bill with the constitutionally required three-fifths majority.
The Bill seeks to empower the Prime Minister to declare specific areas in Trinidad and Tobago as “Zones of Special Operations” in order to uphold the rule of law, public order, citizen security, and public safety whenever such areas face threats to these conditions.
Wrapping up the debate on the Bill after midnight on Saturday, the AG rejected the claim that letting the Prime Minister declare a “zone” breaches the separation of powers.
“To say that, you know, well, the State of Emergency that the President is okay to issue, to sign off on, that for some reason or the other, a piece of legislation which says the Prime Minister is not okay to sit and say, ‘Well, okay, there’s a problem in this community’ because of a separation of power, is a nonsense argument.”
The Attorney General defended the Government’s decision to seek a Special Majority vote for the Bill, even though it wasn’t legally required.
“But you know what? We stuck a Special Majority certificate on this piece of legislation because we want them to agree with us and to pass the legislation. We want this to be their only crime-fighting tool in the last 10 years.”
He also criticised the Opposition, insisting that the Bill is not a State of Emergency and cannot be analysed using SOE-related case law.
“There was nothing in anything that I said when I piloted the Bill that said that I was talking to you about a State of Emergency this afternoon. As a matter of fact, I’d forgotten State of Emergency behind me. I have a piece of legislation in front of me.”
Earlier in the debate, the Minister of Defence and Minister in the Ministry of Homeland Security, Wayne Sturge, assured members that the Bill is full of guardrails.
“They wouldn’t arrest you unless they have reasonable suspicion that you, Tanty, hiding guns. There must be reasonable suspicion. The whole thing in purple because there’s reasonable suspicion and safeguard upon safeguard. Six, where there are reasonable grounds to believe that there’s rampant criminality, such as murder, gang warfare, or escalating levels of crime. So the declaration of the zone is not arbitrary.”