How Long Can a Protection Order Remain in Effect?

Tricia Collins

According to Collins, protection orders can remain in effect for up to three years. Likewise, they can be given for a much shorter period depending on the gravity of the situation affecting the applicant or the victim.

Tricia Collins, Coordinator, Belize Family Court

“A protection order can go for an interim of up to twenty-one days. For a full-fledged protection order it can go up to three years, depending on the situation. Each person‘s situation is very unique, so it‘s not to say that one person might come in and they will get the full maximum three years or somebody can come and they might only get a month or two depending on their situation when it comes to domestic violence and protection order. Also they can apply for a protection order/occupation order. What that does is that the protection/occupation order allows that person to stay within that household, especially if they have children. And because children are accustomed to their space, that is the place that they have been living for quite some time, they are already used to a norm and so magistrates will normally look at these factors when they try to apply an issuing of an occupation order. They look at all the circumstances surrounding that process of inhabitance or that household.”