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REGIONAL: Senate votes against extension of state of emergency

by Barbados Today
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SOURCE: CMC- The Jamaica government suffered a major defeat to its plans to extend the state of public emergency (SOE) in the Senate, a few days after it had  secured the backing of the House of Representatives even as Opposition Leader, Mark Golding, argued that the measures were unconstitutional.

The SOEs had been imposed in seven police divisions across five parishes on November 14 and the government needed the support of at least one opposition legislator for the two-thirds majority needed to ensure the extension beyond November 28.

But when the vote was taken late Thursday, 13 legislators voted for the measure, five against and there were three abstentions.

“It’s a disappointing day, my apologies,” said Leader of Government Business in the Senate, Kamina Johnson Smith after the vote on the resolutions namely the Emergency Powers (Parishes of St. James, Westmoreland and Hanover) (Continuance) Resolution, 2021; and, The Emergency Powers (Specified Areas in the Parish of Kingston and St. Andrew) (Continuance) Resolution, 2021.

As a result, it means that the SOEs will no longer be in effect as of this weekend.

During the prolonged debate on Thursday, the government was chastised for not consulting with the Opposition on the matter.

Senate President Tom Tavares Finson sad later, “two members of Parliament and three unelected members of this Senate have put this country in grave danger”.

He called for a review of the requirement to extend a State of Emergency.

Earlier this week, Golding was among two legislators who voted against the extension, while 15 other legislators, including 13 members of the main opposition People’s National Party (PNP) were not present in the Parliament late on Tuesday night when the vote was taken.

The government had received the support of 46 legislators.

Golding told legislators that he saw no long term benefit from the SOEs during their three years in operation, urging instead that the government engage in bipartisan talks to deal with the crime situation in the country.

“In the meantime, we need to work together and we are willing to work with the government,” he said, arguing also that the SOEs were unconstitutional, and should not have been revived while the constitutionality of the extended detention of some detainees was still before the Appeals Court.

“We have come too far to give up our basic rights,” he said.

However, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said that the SOEs were working when they were brought to a sudden halt by the Court ruling.

“The SOEs work, and if you were to take the analogy of the SOEs being the emergency measures that we have taken during the pandemic to slow and control the spread of the virus, you would effectively say that the SOEs have flattened the curve. That’s what they have done.

“It is not meant, and no one on this side has ever said that the SOE is the silver bullet. That’s not what we have been saying. The SOEs cannot replace conventional policing. This is a point on which we agree. The SOE, however, is a tool to attenuate the situation. To bring it to yield, to allow for conventional policing to work,” Holness told Parliament.

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