Minister of Home Affairs fires back at the Opposition!
On the curfew topic, today, Minister Musa responded to the Opposition, the United Democratic Party, who issued a press release last week calling for a revision of the current health protocols. The U.D.P. release said: “that this was the first time a curfew has been implemented without declaring a State of Emergency, which at the least makes it arguably unconstitutional. Called the curfew unconstitutional.” The release added that “It is also the first time a curfew has been put into effect without an end date.” Today, Minister Musa scolded the Opposition and questioned the source of their legal advice. Musa says the regulations are within the law as they were drawn from the Public Health Act:
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
Kareem Musa
“They condemn these regulations, this statutory instrument and refer to it as being unconstitutional. I don’t know where they are getting their legal advice. But clearly, it appears the Opposition – UDP – is in a very discombobulated state that they are now grabbing on to political straws when the country needs us to fight this pandemic, to fight coronavirus. So, they are attacking this even though they are also the ones who had imposed curfews as well. It is in my opinion grabbing at straws for cheap political mileage and it is going to be for their own demise because people are appreciating the results we are getting. They only need to turn to the Public Health Act look at section eighty-three one e, I believe, which authorizes the DHS from time to time to present regulations to pass statutory instruments such as the one we passed in December for the prevention of the spread of infectious diseases. It says it right there. So, I don’t know why they are now coming and saying this is unconstitutional. That is a completely untenable position. If you recall, when the previous government was imposing this state of emergency, I believe they were using the quarantine regulation, the quarantine act and it was a time when they were trying to stop crime as well, crime was out of control and they were trying to do a dual purpose capture of both the pandemic and the out of control crime situation. If you can recall they had arrested over one hundred individuals from the southside under the SOE but the public health act that I am referring to makes absolutely no mention of their having to be a state of emergency in order for the director of health services to implement and to present these regulations that are in the best interest of the health of our nation.”
Musa says that while the last administration used the S.O.E. and curfew measures to tackle crime, he wants the public to know that the curfew that is currently in place is solely for COVID-19 containment purposes.
