High Court Rules in Matter Involving Expelled CSPCA Members

In other sugar news, a decision was handed down by the High Court on Friday, in a matter where a claim was brought by the Corozal Sugar Cane Producers Association against former vice president Everaldo Uk and nine other members who had been expelled from the CSPCA.  Justice Genevieve Chabot, in her determination, has found that the association breached the bylaws that were established in 2015, when the CSPCA was incorporated, by electing members of the Board of Directors through zone elections.  While Justice Chabot acknowledges that the matter involving Uk’s expulsion is before another court, she has determined that the defendants, as a group, have the required standing to challenge the election of the Board of Directors.  News Five’s Hipolito Novelo also spoke with Uk about the latest developments within the Corozal Sugar Cane Producers Association, as well as a judgment that requires the CSPCA to proceed with an election within three months of the court‘s decision.

Everaldo Uk

Everaldo Uk, Cane Farmer

“The decision to go to the court was after a longstanding argument.  We had requested the de facto, because I call them the de facto directors, we had sent them petitions signed by cane farmers which they declared were false signatures.  I believe that you can remember that through the interviews that you had before in 2020, I believe.  We sent them letters, I believe, we sent them emails requesting a negotiation so we can negotiate on the table.  But after seeing that the issue was taking too long and all our letters that we sent were unheeded, we did not receive any responses from them.  So in the end, I was expelled and my followers, thirty-four other cane farmers, were also expelled from the association.  So we saw that it was impossible for us to make them change their mind.  Then we decided to make a challenge at the Supreme Court of Belize.  That is where we are finally, now.”

Hipolito Novelo

“That decision was handed down recently?”

Everaldo Uk

“The decision that I received yesterday at around midday.  The decision was for a challenge that we took against the association for what they put against us.  They set up an injunction on us, because if you remember, if you can recall, we called a general meeting in which a new board of directors was elected, but the association never recognized that new board officially.  So what they did, they filed an injunction through the courts and we decided to answer that injunction and then we applied for a counterclaim, an ancillary claim because we knew that the bylaws that they were using in 2019 were not official, were not legal bylaws.  These bylaws were changed in fact in 2019, illegally, without a quorum, after the walkout that we did around 3:30 that day at that meeting.  So we set up an adjournment and the rest of the members that were there, they approved a new set of bylaws where they gave the powers to the surveillance committee to expel any member who goes against the directors and I was the first one that was expelled.”