House of Representatives Debate 11th Amendment

Henry Charles Usher

The Eleventh Amendment was debated during today’s Sitting of the House of Representatives, after the Constitution and Foreign Affairs Committee met on Thursday to revisit the proposed legislation. As we have reported, the law seeks to prohibit individuals with a criminal past from running for office in this country. Henry Charles Usher, the Minister of Constitutional Reform, in his introduction of the bill, explained why the proposed piece of legislation has been brought back to National Assembly after an extended “cooling off” period.

Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service

“This amendment is in line with the reforms that you are advocating for Madam Speaker having to do with a stricter code of ethics, having to do with a stricter standard for members of this honorable house and I commend you madam speaker for your efforts in making sure that this house gets to the highest of standards. Now madam speaker after this bill was first introduced in the house there was a period for objections and comments to come before the house committee, the cooling off period, normally the cooling off periods is ninety, but in this instance it lasted much longer than that it lasted for a couple of years for Belizean people send in comments to send in their objections, to raise any matter they had with the particular amendment. Madam speaker there was only two such comments sent in, one of them had to do on a personal nature with the Leader of the Opposition, so I don’t have to raise that today. The second one and it is a valid point raise by Caleb Orosco, that if the act is something that would not have resulted in a term of imprisonment in Belize, but it had happened in another country, in terms of the section being amended, but if this had happened in another country and it resulted in a term of imprisonment, but it would not have resulted in a term of imprisonment in Belize then certainly this disqualification should not apply. There are some countries that still have discriminatory legislation on their books, actions that are not criminal in Belize and we don’t want it to be discriminatory in the way this amendment is applied.”