Email

Print

Before a room full of Cabinet ministers and senators along with leading party personalities, The Prime Minister said it would be all up to parliament - who he made clear would be completely justified in voting against paying what he called an immoral debt. The PM said he took one week to speak on the judgement because he wanted legal and Cabinet advice:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow- Prime Minister
"Now we are confronted by this thunderbolt of a loss coming from the CCJ, the most unkind cut of all. The short question is what happens now? I have kept personal silence since last Wednesday; I didn't want to speak until I had carefully considered all the ramifications, done my own research and sought legal advice. The first point to make is that while the bank won the case the CCJ refused to make the particular order or one particular order that the bank sought. The bank had specifically asked the CCJ to compel the minister of finance to straightaway pay to the bank the full amount of the award. The court refused to do that and it refused, in my view, principally for the reason that even the CCJ is not bigger than our constitution and that constitution as the CCJ recognized and accepted, is clear, that no money can be taken out of our consolidated revenue fund, out of the consolidated revenue fund of this country, for any purpose including to satisfy a judgement unless that money has first been appropriated by Parliament for this specific purpose. This government believes in the rule of law and though bitterly disappointed in the CCJ we recognized the judgment that it has handed down. Accordingly, we will follow scrupulously the process set out by the CCJ, the Crown Proceedings Act, and the Constitution. That is, we will await the service of the certificate that the bank must procure from the registrar after 21 days and then I will propose a supplementary appropriations bill to parliament. What has to be made crystal clear, however, that there is no certainty that such a bill will pass and if it doesn't pass, in my view, that is in no way in violation with the rule of law. The court, no doubt, expects the parliament will vote yes but the court can expect anything. What the court cannot do is to compel parliament to vote in any particular way. Governments, usually, which as a matter of honor and responsibility, pay debts; usually but not invariably. And when it comes to the particular matter of a law to provide for the payment of a judgment debt which though legally valid is morally reprehensible. It is the essence of a country's sovereignty and parliaments authority that a decision can be made not to approve the law, not to pay the bill. And in the absence of any vote from parliament, your judgment debt against the government and against the crown runs the risk, in this case, I would say the extremely high risk, of remaining unsatisfied, remaining unpaid. Our history in Belize is such that 9 times out of 10, 99 times out of a 100 without any difficulty at all we will satisfy a judgment and we will pay a debt but there is that 10th case and that 100th case you see. So, it is my thesis, it is my case to you today that there is a spectrum of perfectly supportable indeed compelling reasons why our parliament when this matter comes to a vote might or might not go a certain way. What I will tell you is that each member on the government's side of the house will be directed, when this bill is presented, to vote his or her conscience. So that conscience vote will apply equally to 'moi,' equally to me even though I am the one who is going to move the bill."