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Former AG Fonseca: Rule Of Law Eroded By Slew Of Judicial Changes
posted (November 12, 2010)
And now, back to the House of Representatives…..

Speaking on the adjournment former attorney General Francis Fonseca discussed the state of the judiciary. He states that the rule of law has been undermined by what he characterized as the forced departure of The President Of The court of Appeal, as well as Justice of Appeal Boyd Carey, and the refusal to let Chief Justice Dr. Abdulai Conteh stay on as CJ until he had finished up all the cases he had pending. As expected the Prime Minister bristled at the suggestion:..

Francis Fonseca, Former Attorney General
"And they sent this man the Solicitor General, utter disrespect to the Chief Justice of this country - sent this man to the Chief Justice's office to ask the Chief justice to proceed on early retirement - early leave. What disrespect to send the Solicitor General to the Chief Justice to ask him to leave on early retirement! And of course the Chief Justice flatly refused and when the Chief Justice refused of course the prime minister is on record, he made it clear that he would not extend his tenure and that he would have to be gone by I believe it was at the end of August or September. The Chief Justice wanted an extension to December, he says 'listen I need to complete the work that I have in front of me, the work in my court, I have a number of cases before me that some of them have been part heard, a number of cases that I need to complete, I need until the end of December to complete those cases.' And of course the prime minister we all know what his response was - absolutely no. The question is why, why, what was Dr. Conteh's grave sin? But that Mr. Speaker is where we are today in Belize under the UDP, it's with me or against me, my agenda and only my agenda, no room for discussion, no room for consultation, opposing views are met with petty personal attacks from all governments' assets and all the governments' organs and while the judiciary and the rule of law Mr. Speaker are being undermined, we had just had our 112th murder including a record number of minors being killed in Belize today. So Mr. Speaker our message is stop interfering with the judiciary, Mr. Prime Minister. To quote a distinguished senior counsel, stop trying to shape the judiciary in your image and likeness; get on with the business of protecting the citizens of Belize from crime and violence. Leave the judiciary alone."

Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"You all are a bunch of hypocrites and frauds, you used to badmouth the same Chief Justice. All the stories you used to tell about him, I won't call the names of the members of the bar association who regaled people with the story of having caught a cab in Washington, found the driver to be from Sierra Leone and what all that driver had said about the Chief Justice and when he was a politician in Sierra Leone. The same people who led the charge when time came under the constitution for the Chief Justice to retire and the government said you need to retire, the same people who led the charge for him were those who used to badmouth him terribly. When I was at the bar I heard them with their badmouthing, but you see they thought they could use the fact of the retirement for their political purposes, so all of a sudden they became the greatest lovers of the Chief Justice. Bunch of hypocrites and frauds! But again you see Mr. Speaker it is most unfortunate that he had done this because he causes me to say things that I would not have wanted to say about all they used to complain about with respect to the Chief justice. The man has retired, he is gone, we could have let well enough alone but I am not going to stand here and allow you to get away with the falsehoods, with the disingenuousness, with the hypocrisy and since you bring these people into the crosshairs, I am going to respond and as usual I will tell the truth and if they get hurt on the process by my revelations as to all that you had to say about them, they must blame you, not me."

But beyond the histrionics - we did tease out one piece of news: that the next President of the court of Appeal will be a Belizean.

As we've reported Barbadian Justice Elliot Mottley who had served as President of the court since 2006 very suddenly announced that he was stepping down in mid October.

That paves the way for a new president and the PM confirmed that it will be a Belizean:..

Jules Vasquez
"And you said that it is time - or I think you quoted someone - that it is time to have a Belizean president of the court of appeal. Has it been determined that we will have a Belizean president of the court and who will that person be?"

Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"Well it certainly hasn't, who the person will be is not determined. We have not even determined that the president will be Belizean but given what I said think it stands to reason that since we have 2 Belizeans on the court that one of them would be the next president."

Jules Vasquez
"Well there are 2, and one is your brother, so it's a consequential differentiation."

Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"Indeed, point taken."

Jules Vasquez
"So then are we to conclude most likely it will not be your brother?"

Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"I say you have made a point and it's a valid point and you will recognize that because it's a valid point there is some weight that it must play in terms of the determination. I will leave it at that."

And while all those events were the big news items of the day other important pieces of legislation were brought to the house.

The bill to reform education financing was tabled as was the finance and reform audit reform bill, as well as a bill to amend the income and business tax act which will give tax relief to those earning less than 29 thousand dollars a year, and to lower the business tax on phone companies from 24% to 19%.

The house also approved a 15 million US dollar loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development which will be used for municpal improvments.

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