Barrow charges removal violates rule of law
It goes without saying that today’s news was not particularly popular with the Opposition. U.D.P. Leader Dean Barrow the same man who announced the appointment in his last days as Attorney General, this afternoon told the press that today’s developments represented nothing less than the subversion of the constitution and rule of law in Belize.
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition, U.D.P.
“I need to say right on the onset that I went to the registry to try to get a copy of the papers that had been filed which set up the so called “application” that led to the making of the so called “order” removing the Chief Justice and I was unable to get any papers. The registrar had no knowledge of what had occurred and the Acting Deputy Registrar Mr. Pennel told me that he was unable to give me copies of what by now had become public, part of the public record, because the Judge who had heard the application Mr. Meerabux had the papers under lock and key.
But as I understand it, what happened was that Mr. Francis Fonseca, who is an attorney at law firm owned by the Prime Minister of this country, Said Musa, moved a motion in front of Mr. Justice Meerabux, a motion brought in the name of some person called Mohammed seeking a declaration that the Chief Justice was not validly appointed and seeking a further order obliging the Chief Justice to vacate his office. In fact I have a copy of the order made by Mr. Justice Meerabux and that order says it is hereby declared and ordered that the propertied appointment of the Honorable Manuel Sosa as Chief Justice effective 26th August, 1998 was unconstitutional and therefore null and void. Two, the said Honorable Manuel Sosa is hereby prohibited forthwith from continuing to act as Chief Justice.
The Chief Justice, and I still call him Chief Justice because in my view what has happened, is not just a massive violation of democracy but massively illegal. The Chief Justice was in no way informed of what was happening. He sat in court this morning as it happened in the matter of the constitutional redress motion that I had brought against the government and it was after the rising of the court that as I understand it, he was informed of the making of this propertied order. This afternoon when he returned to the Supreme Court he was barred by police officers from entering the Chief Justice’s chambers. As I further understand it the Chief Justice then sought to put himself in the Court of Appeal room which is reserved for a judge other than the Chief Justice. Taking the view that apart from the obvious illegality of the order in any event there was no challenge to his appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court. The policemen who had prevented him from entering the Chief Justice’s chambers sought instructions from Belmopan and based on those instructions also prohibited the Chief Justice from entering that other room, adjunct to the Court of Appeal chamber.
Ladies and gentlemen the spectacle of the government using force to humiliate, to embarrass the Chief Justice and to prevent him from carrying out his lawful function is one that is completely without precedence.”
