PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Sept 24, CMC – Trinidad and Tobago Thursday celebrated its 50th anniversary of Republicanism with President Christine Kangaloo saying that the Constitution recognises and protects fundamental rights and freedoms.
She said that those guarantees are not ornaments for tranquil times and that they matter most when fear is greatest and the pressure to set them aside is strongest.
The Head of State said that crime has caused profound grief and anxiety in homes and communities across Trinidad and Tobago and that the state has an undeniable duty to protect life, maintain public order and ensure that citizens can live without fear.
“Yet a mature Republic must protect security, liberty and the sanctity of life together,” she said, adding that “measures adopted in the public interest must remain necessary, proportionate, accountable and subject to the law,” she said, adding that “ exceptional powers must remain truly exceptional”.
She made no reference to the controversial Special Operations Bill, which provides for the establishment of policing districts, the conduct of special operations to combat criminality in those policing districts including also for persons to be in possession of permits to enter or leave those districts.
(Details in Politics section)
CMC/2026