Daly Bread: Revisiting “arbitrary” Covid travel exemptions and T&T’s “narrow” suffering

This week I am returning to the recent Court of Appeal declaration that it was a breach of the constitutional rights of two citizens of Trinidad and Tobago (the Applicants), who were denied re-entry into Trinidad and Tobago when the borders were closed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the material time, the then People’s National Movement (PNM) Government, through the Ministry of National Security, were granting exemptions to permit re-entry. However, there were no published criteria for the grant of exemptions and the Applicants were not successful in obtaining exemptions.

The period when there were no published criteria was between March 2020 and July 2020. Criteria were released on 24 July 2020 in response to a Freedom of Information request.

I am returning to this subject because zealots of the red and yellow respectively have cherry-picked certain statements in the judgments of the Court and are using them for purposes such as personal attacks on Dr Roshan Parasram, who was the chief medical officer during the period of the pandemic.

Stuart Young, now an Opposition MP, was minister of national security at the time and subsequently briefly held office as prime minister before the PNM badly lost the April 2025 General Election.

He has also commented. I return below to his comments.

It may be useful therefore for readers to see what the fundamentals of the decision are and make their own assessments as I share mine.

The fundamental pillar of the decision is set out in paragraph 111 of the judgment where Justice of Appeal Boodoosingh states as follows:

“Having said that the Covid-19 pandemic led to Trinidad and Tobago taking drastic action in that regard in closing its borders to all persons including its citizens, in hindsight, it is easy to criticize such decisions and to say it should not have been done.

“The authorities were dealing with very difficult challenges which included the ability of the health care system to cope if a sudden influx of cases came in.  Further, closure of borders was not unprecedented. Democratic Commonwealth states such as New Zealand and Australia had similar closures.

Then came the qualifying statement: “But such drastic action, howsoever necessary it may have been felt at the time, cannot take away from the position that once an exemption policy was decided upon, it was incumbent to have a fair policy including criteria for permitting entry.

“Once it was decided that some would be let in immediately, and others would have to wait a longer time, there must have been published criteria to guide how those permissions would be granted. If there were not, then arbitrariness would follow.

“It would mean that it was up to the Minister to decide without limitation. He could allow one in and exclude another for no reason.”

In an important preceding statement at paragraph 28, referring to the non-disclosure of the criteria, Justice of Appeal Bereaux said:

“The effect of that non-disclosure was that nationals making applications were essentially ‘shooting in the dark’ and hoping that the application captured all that had purchased with the Minister. That is the epitome of arbitrariness.”

Stuart Young has described the decision as being “a very narrow ruling” and one that related only to a short time when there were no criteria.

Interestingly he reportedly “noted that Bereaux said that the issue was not a travel ban but how exemptions to the ban on re-entry had been managed”. (See Trinidad Newsday 2 October 2025.)

Once it is noted that management of exemptions is an issue, that issue does not go away simply because criteria were disclosed in July 2020.

What if, those criteria were overlooked or breached and, as I raised last week, persons were permitted to re-enter for Christmas and other vacations, weddings and other occasions only to leave again?

What if exemptions were granted simply as a result of a phone call to a minister?

I invite the current Government to look into the exemptions and bus’ a few marks about this.

Meanwhile Stuart Young must have forgotten in his comments to express sorrow for the horrible plight of the Applicants on whose cases the Court adjudicated.  Their suffering was not “narrow”.

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Martin Daly

Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.