John Briceño on P.U.P. Legal Challenge

While five P.U.P. area representatives were in Supreme Court this morning as claimants in the legal challenge brought about by the opposition, Party Leader John Briceño was in Belmopan for the presentation of the budget.  We caught up with him afterwards for an official position on the legal challenge which also sees an application for an injunction to stave off the holding of the I.C.J. referendum on April tenth.

John Briceño

John Briceño, Leader of Opposition

“We have been saying for some time that we are not ready to have a referendum on April tenth, and there are so many things that need to be addressed, but in this case, we are taking the government on two issues.  The first one, we’re saying that you cannot bypass the National Assembly.  The executive does not have the power to sign international agreements and enact it into our national laws without coming to the house first.  And secondly, we are also saying that in the Compromis, I think it’s Article 7, we are saying that the government, we have agreed that we are going to have a binding referendum and the referendum that we are having on April tenth is not a binding one, it’s a non-binding referendum and that is why we are asking the courts to address this and to see if they would agree with what we are saying.”