A month ago, Oceana Belize won a major case against the Government of Belize when Justice Legall declared 6 offshore oil-drilling contracts null and void.
And then, 2 weeks ago, Treaty Energy Belize, the company operating under the umbrella of Princess Petroleum, resumed their oil drilling explorations even after Justice Legall issued an injunction against its agreement with the Government of Belize.
Oceana Belize says that Government should act responsibly and enforce the order of the Supreme Court. They believe that GOB has the authority and is refusing to do so because they don't like the judgment.
Well, GOB says that the court created a power vacuum by restraining them from acting as the oversight mechanism. They claim that this gives Providence Energy Belize Limited, Princess Petroleum Limited – and by extension Treaty Energy – free reign to do as they please under the PSA's.
So, this quite substantial difference of opinion has made it before Chief Justice Benjamin, and today he was supposed to hear a case brought by GOB to lift the injunction. We spoke to both sides when they came out of a very brief hearing. Here's what they told us.
Audrey Matura-Shepherd - VP, Oceana Belize
"So what happened - this morning we were to hear this matter , the stay of execution, maybe people don't understand what has happened. When we won the case when the judge said that all contracts were unlawful, null and void - he also gave an injunction which said that the Government, its servants and its agents should not go about drilling that also means that the Government should do everything if any oil company tried to drill. Of course, based on the evidence that the Government has presented, Princess wrote the Prime Minster, not the Minister of Energy and so did Providence and asked the Government to please come to court now and ask that the injunction be removed, so that's the application they wanted to hear this morning. The Chief Justice said he was not able for two reasons - he had not seen the bundle before with all the cases and authority so it would not be fair for him to hear the matter and also because of what the Government has put in as evidence, we had to go and find an expert to dispute it because they made a lot of claims. For us to get an expert we must first apply to the court to get an expert admitted, that's the rules of our courts. So that was another application that we were not able to do this morning so again in fairness the judge needs to look into all the evidence then consider that."
Denys Barrow - Attorney for GOB
"The Government's involvement is that the injunction granted by Justice Legall has the effect of preventing the Government from regulating, monitoring and guiding what the Peteroleum explorers are doing. So the judgments enjoins the government, it imposes an injunction upon the government but it does nothing to the petroleum explorers so they can do what they want because no judgment binds them. The government is prevented by the injunction from regulating what they're doing, approving or disapproving what they're doing from the injunction says 'carrying out the provisions of the Petroleum sharing agreement'. Therefore, it means the court gave a declaration but there is a very clear law that from the Court of Appeal of Belize says that a declaration does not enforce itself - a declaration says may lawfully be ignored."
Audrey Matura-Shepherd
"I think there's a misconception that people have that the oil companies can go ahead and drill - they cannot and I'll explain why they cannot. The constitution says that all oil is owned by the Government of Belize - the Petroleum act and the subsidiary laws also said that it is only the government can go into oil drilling and exploration and development, however they can contract. At the end of the day the gate keeper is the government so when the gate keeper is stopped from assisting the oil companies in any way - that's how the injunction works. If it were true what the Prime Ministers said that the injunction had no effect then why come to court and have it to be removed. The mere fact that they have to get it removed tells you that the injunction has a great weight."
Denys Barrow
"If the government continues to be bound by the injunction then the Government can't tell them what to do so they would be left to run their exploration without any supervision by the government - that is the whole point of our application. That Justice Legall made a serious mistake because you can't stop one party from a contract, from taking actions and regulating how the contract is to be performed but allow the other party free to do what they are entitled to do lawfully under the contract."
The matter goes back before the court on Tuesday, where Susan Harvey, the international expert from Harvey Consultancy, will provide testimony for Oceana.
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