Statutory Instrument 134 is Broken Down

The new statutory instrument took effect on Tuesday, but as the government said today, alternative recommendations will be made.  Now, serious concerns were raised at the level of the National Oversight Committee regarding the responsibility of the Director of Health Services to surrender the names of all COVID-19 patients to the Minister of National Security.  The regulation requires the DHS to hand over the names and failure to do so will constitute a criminal offense not on the violator, but on the DHS, though there is apprehension over doctor/patient confidentiality.  This morning, Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte explained reason for Statutory Instrument 134, including the monitoring of persons who are required to self-isolate once tested positive.

Michael Peyrefitte

Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General

“The next amendment that seems to be getting some attention is that we find that as the cases increase, the Ministry of Health would, from time to time, put more people in detention or allow more people to self-isolate at home or self-quarantine and so when these people violate their self-isolation orders of their self-quarantine requirements the police need to be sprung into action almost immediately.  So it’s very, very critical that we have that information, so we’ve put in the law the need for the DHS to provide to the Minister of National Security all those people who have tested positive or all those people who are in self-isolation or quarantine so that we can know and have a ready list available for people that we have to look out for to make sure that they are not violating the orders given to them by the quarantine authority. We just want to make sure that it’s not left to his discretion to provide it.  He must provide it.”