Juratowitch’s Legal Opinion Speaks to Invalidity of Definitive Agreement
Prime Minister John Briceño
On Monday, the Government of Belize issued a press release reiterating its position on Portico, presumably to get ahead of a fresh round of criticism in light of new revelation that the Briceño administration was advised of the illegality of the Definitive Agreement long before it was presented in Cabinet. The fifty-one page document is a comprehensive legal opinion put together by Dr. Ben Juratowitch, a distinguished legal mind who represents Belize at the ICJ in the territorial dispute with Guatemala. Notwithstanding Juratowitch’s professional view on the Definitive Agreement, the flawed document was brought to Cabinet allowing with an accompanying piece of proposed legislation. We go back to an interview with Prime Minister John Briceño on March first, where News Five’s Isani Cayetano asked about the likelihood of the Definitive Agreement was fraudulently entered into and the prime minister’s response at that time. Here’s that clip.
[File: March 1st, 2023] Isani Cayetano
“I am not sure if this is perhaps a legal question to ask, but if it is found that the Definitive Agreement was given fraudulently, is there any way that your administration can perhaps rescind that contract?”
[File: March 1st, 2023] Prime Minister John Briceño
“As you rightly pointed out, that’s a legal question and that would be something that’s for the attorney general’s ministry to take a look at and then advise the cabinet.”
Reporter
“Is there any update from Waterloo regarding international arbitration over PBL [Port of Belize Ltd.]?”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“Well its’ not that they could ask for international arbitration.”
Reporter
“They wrote you a letter.”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“They wrote a letter that they want to apply to [invoke] the investment treaty that we signed and again, that’s their right if they want to do that. We know that we are trying to do everything properly, we’re trying to follow the law and that’s what I’ve said to Waterloo, I’ve said it to Stake Bank and I will say it to Port Magical, to all of them. Once you follow the law, you will have a government that is going to be supportive.”
In Juratowitch’s legal opinion submitted on April twentieth, he wrote, “where a governmental function is regulated by statute, that function cannot be exercised on the basis of prerogative power, the function purportedly exercised by the minister in entering into the agreement in this case is one regulated by statute; specifically, the Finance and Audit (Reform) Act. In those circumstances, the minister could not have entered into the agreement in exercise of prerogative power. For the minister to have entered into the Agreement on the basis of the statutory power set out in section seventeen of the Finance and Audit Reform Act, he would have had to have complied with the conditions set out in that section. It appears that he did not comply with those conditions. Thus he did not enter into the agreement in exercise of his statutory power and, consequently, he had no authority to enter into the agreement.”
