A growing legal crisis has emerged over systemic failures in providing court-appointed legal representation to low-income individuals held under preventive detention orders (PDOs), with attorney Keron Ramkhalwhan warning that an entire group of disadvantaged detainees are being stripped of their constitutional right to challenge their custody.
Ramkhalwhan laid out the allegations in an August 14 pre-action protocol letter addressed to Attorney General John Jeremie, Review Tribunal chairman David Alexander, and Legal Aid and Advisory Authority chairman Renuka Rambhajan, outlining the case of his client Jamaalee Wilson, a 20-year-old man held at the Eastern Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre since July 18 under a PDO signed by Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander. The minister’s order alleges Wilson is a senior member of an organized criminal gang linked to firearms, violent offenses including home invasions and armed robberies, and imminent plans to escalate attacks on the public, justifying detention to protect public safety.
The core of the legal dispute turns on a little-noticed provision of the 2026 Emergency Powers Regulations (EPR): Paragraph 7(5) of the EPR Schedule explicitly grants the Review Tribunal— the body tasked with reviewing PDO detentions— the authority to assign a legal representative to indigent detainees, when the tribunal determines legal aid is necessary to carry out its justice functions. Regulation 7(6) further specifies that costs for assigned counsel are to be covered by parliamentary appropriations, within existing spending limits.
According to Ramkhalwhan’s letter, Wilson’s mother Abena Wilson formally requested an urgent review of her son’s detention on July 29, explicitly notifying the tribunal that her family could not afford to hire a private attorney. The next day, the tribunal secretary redirected her to the Legal Aid and Advisory Authority (LA AA) to secure representation. Over the following two weeks, Abena Wilson repeatedly contacted and visited the LAAA to request assistance, but the authority uniformly declined support. The LAAA confirmed it does not provide legal representation for preventive detention matters or challenges before the Review Tribunal, leaving Wilson with no access to counsel.
Ramkhalwhan argues the Review Tribunal failed entirely to uphold its statutory obligations. Not only did the body wrongly shift its responsibility for assigning counsel to an agency that lacks authority to act in these cases, but it also never informed Wilson of his right to apply for court-assigned representation under Paragraph 7(5), never considered whether legal aid was required for the fair conduct of his detention review, and never issued any reasoning for declining to appoint counsel. “The power conferred by paragraph 7(5) is simply not mentioned. On the material available to me, the Review Tribunal did not consider it at all,” Ramkhalwhan wrote in the letter.
The attorney emphasizes the problem extends far beyond Wilson’s individual case. He says Wilson has reported that dozens of other PDO detainees at the Eastern Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre are also struggling to access information about securing legal aid to challenge their detentions. To date, no information, application forms, or lists of available attorneys have been provided to indigent detainees, and no tribunal or government officials have visited facilities to explain the process for accessing court-appointed counsel.
Ramkhalwhan called the current setup a system that exclusively penalizes low-income people, noting that detainees with the means to hire private counsel are guaranteed the right to retain an attorney at their own cost under existing regulations. Indigent detainees, by contrast, are directed to a non-functional process with an agency that cannot assist, leaving them completely locked out of the legal system. He added that the vast majority of people held under PDOs come from the country’s most economically marginalized communities — the exact group Paragraph 7(5) was designed to protect.
The Review Tribunal was given until 4 p.m. on an unspecified recent date to appoint counsel for Wilson, and as of the latest reporting, attempts to reach Ramkhalwhan for comment on whether a response had been received were unsuccessful. Ramkhalwhan has warned that if the issue is not resolved immediately, he will move forward with judicial review and constitutional proceedings, arguing the tribunal’s failure to appoint counsel is unlawful and unconstitutional. He contends the tribunal’s decision to redirect Wilson to the LAAA, and its refusal to exercise its own statutory power to assign counsel, is ultra vires (beyond the legal power granted to the tribunal under the EPR) and violates Wilson’s constitutional right to equal protection of the law under Section 4(b) of the national constitution, effectively rendering the only legal protection for indigent detainees completely unenforceable.