Francis Fonseca: “We have a rogue Prime Minister on our hands”

Dean Barrow

Turning to the ruling of the recent ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice, the former Attorney General, Francis Fonseca, says that Prime Minister Dean Barrow has gone rogue and is disregarding the rule of law. Pre-empting the C.C.J.’s ruling last week, Prime Minister Barrow famously told the nation that he “won’t pay, can’t pay.”  Within days, the Caribbean Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday that Barrow’s takeover of the Belize International Services Limited and IMMARBE was unlawful and unconstitutional. In delivering a blistering judgment contained in one hundred and forty-eight pages, the C.C.J. found that there was nothing wrong with the initial B.I.S.L. contract which stated that receipts should go to the consolidated funds. However, for twenty years, under the past and current administrations, receipts went to an escrow account and government never did anything about it but seized the registries in 2013.    Fonseca said today that Barrow is displaying a blatant disrespect towards the high court of the law and rule of law. 

Francis Fonseca

Francis Fonseca, Area Representative, Freetown

“We have a rogue Prime Minister on our hands who has over and over again demonstrated an absolute disregard for the rule of law. He is wrong on the law. The Prime Minister is wrong on the law in terms of several issues. One, he talked about the Chief Justice’s decision. He is fundamentally wrong on that. The Chief Justice did hand down a decision. He made a ruling and to have the Prime Minister of a country get up and effectively say the Chief Justice’s contract was never renewed so that ruling in effect never existed. I mean that’s an absolute disgrace. In terms of the recent ruling, again the disregard for the rule of law. It is just arrogance to say we can’t pay, we won’t pay. Absolute arrogance.”