Volney questions effectiveness of mask law

FORMER PP minister and MP Herbert Volney is questioning whether legislation to make wearing masks in public mandatory will be effective to encourage people to comply with public health regulations designed to stop the spread of covid19 in TT.

The legislation will be laid in Parliament on Friday. It will be the first sitting of Parliament after the August 10 general election.

In a post on his Facebook page on Thursday, Volney referred to statements made by Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi about the legislation.

Volney, a former High Court justice, said, “The proposal for a ticketing system of fining persons for not wearing masks will head to the courts unless the measure is enacted as a statutory instrument aka an Act of Parliament with a special majority.”

He also said the proposed bill should have a clause “to expressly declare that it is enacted notwithstanding that it encroaches upon the fundamental right to property not to be deprived thereof without due process.”

Volney said now that the election is over “there will be no fall out from the government approaching the pandemic outbreak in the correct and proper way.”

He argued that many of the regulations that are being incrementally promulgated as TT faces a second wave of covid19 “are pro tanto unconstitutional and liable to be struck down as an impermissible encroachment upon fundamental rights of the individual.”

The Prime Minister and Al-Rawi have said the legislation needs a simple majority for passage in Parliament. Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has said the Opposition will support the legislation.

Volney also said the Constitution has a provision to address the outbreak of an epidemic in a lawful way “by the declaration of a period of public (health) emergency that would empower government to promulgate the very regulations that are being imposed on the people of TT.”

He cautioned Government against “playing Russian roulette with this matter by avoiding the appropriate remedy that does not necessarily give the police powers over the people, other than the power to legally enforce good law.”