The Regulation They Broke While Quoting It.
Filed: 15 September 2020
Reference: SWANK / TCI Governor’s Office / PC-77477
Download PDF: 2020-09-15_Core_PC-77477_TurksAndCaicos_EmergencyPowers_CovidUnlawfulEntryRegulation.pdf
Summary: Official Government Gazette publication of the Emergency Powers (COVID-19) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (No. 18 of 2020) — the law solemnly ignored by the very officers charged with enforcing it.
I. What Happened
• On 15 September 2020, the Turks & Caicos Governor issued Regulation 18 of 2020, granting himself sweeping powers to control human proximity in the name of “public health.”
• The statute, a masterclass in colonial grammar, criminalised unlawful entry, mandated six-foot distancing, and sanctioned maskless trespass with penalties so precise they could be measured in inches.
• Weeks later, officials from the Department of Social Development — citing this very regulation — entered Polly Chromatic’s home unmasked, uninvited, and undisturbed by their own legislation.
• The Government Gazette therefore became Exhibit A in the jurisprudence of hypocrisy: law as ornament, compliance as a photo op.
II. What the Document Establishes
• The primary legal instrument governing COVID-19 conduct in the TCI.
• A written standard of behaviour breached first by its authors.
• Evidence that public health law was treated as ceremonial rather than functional.
• The statutory spine underpinning later complaints of unlawful entry and disability-risk exposure.
• Proof that “emergency powers” translate as “rules for others.”
III. Why SWANK Logged It
• Because every good case needs its scripture — and this was the scripture they forgot to read.
• Because jurisdiction requires a text, and this is the text they proved optional.
• Because evidence of governance is never as telling as evidence of its disobedience.
• Because pandemic law was less about distance than about deference.
IV. Applicable Standards & Violations
• Emergency Powers (COVID-19) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (No. 18 of 2020) — breached Regulations 7 and 9 (governmental entry restrictions and mask mandates).
• Public and Environmental Health Ordinance (2009 Revised) — failure to protect public safety in official capacity.
• UN CRPD Art. 11 — protection in emergencies for persons with disabilities.
• ECHR Art. 8 — interference with private life without lawful basis.
V. SWANK’s Position
This is not “public health.”
This is performative containment with colonial undertones.
• We do not accept that regulation exists only for citizens.
• We reject the theatre of authority in latex-free gloves.
• We archive every statute that looked majestic in print and miserable in practice.
⟡ Formally Archived by SWANK London Ltd. ⟡
Every section jurisdictional. Every preamble propaganda.
Because when law forgets to apply to lawmakers, it becomes literature.
This is not a blog.
This is a legal-aesthetic instrument.
Filed with deliberate punctuation, preserved for litigation and education.
Because evidence deserves elegance — and retaliation deserves an archive.
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Unlicensed reproduction will be cited as panic, not authorship.