Supreme Court to Prioritize Pending 2016 Criminal Matters
Will the high-profile case involving accused murderer William ‘Danny’ Mason be heard in the Supreme Court this year? Mason is one of seventy-four inmates on pretrial detention at the Belize Central Prison who has been incarcerated since 2016. During the ceremonial opening of the 2019 legal calendar, Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin, in addressing the court, stated that extra effort will be placed on resolving those matters this year. There are currently four hundred and forty-three persons on remand at the Hattieville facility.
Kenneth Benjamin
Kenneth Benjamin, Chief Justice
“As of December 31st, 2018, the statistics made available from the Kolbe Foundation revealed that there are two hundred and sixty persons remanded by the magistrate’s court and family court. One hundred and eighty-two persons are remanded by order of the Supreme Court, of which nine persons are awaiting sentence, decision after trial and extradition. One person is detained at the pleasure of the Supreme Court. Of the remaining one hundred and seventy-two cases awaiting trial before the Supreme Court, seventy-four remandees have been in custody prior to the end of 2016. [The] overwhelming majority are cases of murder and these matters will be prioritized for disposal in 2019. It is progressive to note that at the end of 2017, the remand population stood at a hundred and fifty-seven persons awaiting trial for over two years, so there has been a slight improvement.”
