There are currently around 40 prisoners serving life sentences in Belize, and if the CCJ rules in favor of August, some of their sentences will be up for review. That's why today, students from the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica, along with a few lawyers, went to the Hattieville Prison today to brief these inmates on their possible options. Two of those students gave us some more details on the consultations and the significance of this appeal...

Hector Guerra, Student, Norman Manley Law School
"We were here to speak about the implications that emanate from the Gregory August decision that was handed down by the court of appeal earlier this year."

Alex Courtenay, 7News
"Can you go into some detail about the decision or at least the significance of the decision?"

Hector Guerra, Student, Norman Manley Law School
"Yes the significance is that basically the court of appeal decided that the mandatory nature of the life imprisonment given to individuals who have committed murder is now unconstitutional. That is because the mandatory nature takes away the judicial discretion from the judge and sentences are supposed to be handed down tailored for the individual and circumstances. So a trial judge is supposed to take into consideration whether the individual is perhaps at a young stage in his life, whether he has previous convictions. However, the mandatory nature of the penalty took away that discretion from the trial judge."

Gavin Courtenay, Student, Norman Manley Law School
"This consultation is very significant for a lot of reasons. The major thing being that these people are currently incarcerated. What we were doing today is basically informing them of their rights and how they may possibly be affected by the Gregory August decision. Because their incarcerated they may not have access to media or legal counsel. So informing people of their rights is the most important part of what we were doing today. That's why we see it as something very significant."

Alex Courtenay, 7News
"In terms of appealing for release, we know that prison is not necessarily meant as a punishment but rather as rehabilitation. Was that something that was taken into consideration during the appeal to overturn the life sentences?"

Hector Guerra, Student, Norman Manley Law School
"Yes, so the court of appeal in the Gregory August decision basically said that the mandatory nature of the life imprisonment focuses too much on the punitive nature of sentencing. One aspect that it ignores is the fact that sentencing is supposed to help with rehabilitation. So in here you find that inmates are learning how to build tables, to be handymen, they're learning various agricultural stuff. So it's an aspect that the mandatory nature of the penalty ignores and it goes to the constitutionality as I was saying."

Alex Courtenay, 7News
"In a sense, some of the people who are looking to appeal they may not be specifically appealing for release but a change of sentence or a change of the amount of time they have to serve in prison."

Gavin Courtenay, Student, Norman Manley Law School
"Yes exactly that's what the case is because there's a lot of situations where people may have admitted that they have actually been guilty but they may say 'if you look at the circumstances of my case we can't just say that' the blanket mandatory life sentence is appropriate for all cases and that's the importance of the Gregory August case. Some of the prisoners may have indicated that they feel maybe the sentence should just be reduced but we were just taking information based on what their feelings were about their particular case."

Alex Courtenay, 7News
"You mentioned that yourself and several other students from Norman Manley School are all the ones who are undertaking this briefing and consultation, where did that come from?"

Hector Guerra, Student, Norman Manley Law School
"As a part of our curriculum at the Norman Manley Law School, students are required to conduct social outreach within their communities. We wanted to have the most impact within our country and so we thought it would be right to come back home summer and find a way to have the most impact in Belize. Coming here to the prison fitted right with that objective."

The purpose of this consultation was to simply assess the situation of these prisoners, and inform them on their options.