Dickie Bradley on the Gun Law

Dickie Bradley

Earlier we told you about the seminar being held under the auspices of the University of the West Indies. The purpose of the day-long session is basically to determine how far we have come where constitutionally guaranteed rights are concerned. Especially where the imprisonment of Belizeans is concerned, speaker at the seminar Dickie Bradley says that sometimes it is difficult to believe that we’ve come eight hundred years since the signing of the Magna Carta.

Dickie Bradley, Speaker at Conference

“Our liberties as citizens of this country are being watered down, are being whittled, because while you’re entitled to your freedom of movement, to your right to be free, they have been passing laws to say that first of all the Magistrate does not have any discretion to give a man bail for the first three months if he commits this or that offence, and it is only an allegation against him. So that these laws which are interfering with your right to be free are packing up the jail, is violating your right to be treated as innocent until you are proven guilty, is violating your right to have bail. Bail is not some sort of privilege…bail by law is a right. You are entitled to your freedom. And what has been happening before our eyes is that a long list of offences the rulers are making it that our Magistrate can’t give bail. If you can’t afford a lawyer to go to the Supreme Court you have to stay in jail. Men are in there five years, seven years, ten years and can’t have a trial. How did we reach that stage? Eight hundred years ago they were putting an end to those things.”