G.O.B. is Prepared to Go the Distance in Redistricting Challenge

Michael Peyrefitte

Minister Peyrefitte also spoke about the Supreme Court decision to grant Lord Michael Ashcroft’s application to join the Belize Peace Movement in its legal challenge to have the Government of Belize conduct a redistricting exercise prior to the November 2020 General Elections.  Should there be a ruling compelling government to proceed with redistricting, Peyrefitte says that all legal options will be exhausted which includes appealing the matter at the Court of Appeal, as well as the Caribbean Court of Justice.

Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General

“It’s a decision of the court; he wanted to be added as an interested party, so not as a claimant or a defendant, but an interested party only.  The court decided that he should be added and that’s it.  There is no, it doesn’t turn on it really, other than he claims that he can bring expert experience and some level of expertise to the process to show why there should be redistricting and if the court is minded to grant an order for redistricting, how you go about doing it.  So we have to decide whether or not we want to accept that ruling, whether or not we want to appeal that ruling and we will be making that decision in the coming days.”

Isani Cayetano

“If the Supreme Court, however, rules that there must be a redistricting exercise to be held before the next general elections is called, in your opinion, is there sufficient time to embark upon such an exercise given the specific timeline that‘s before us?”

Michael Peyrefitte

“Well even if the Supreme Court were to grant the order to redistrict, we would have to see if we want to exercise our option to appeal to the Court of Appeal and whichever party loses at the Court of Appeal may want to go to the apex court which is the C.C.J.   So you’re thinking about if it goes all the way there, it almost puts you like August, September.  To me, there would not be enough time.  And let me remind you that we wanted to do redistricting.  It was the very same unions who told us that before you could redistrict you have to go through a re-registration process and that’s what we went through before the I.C.J.   So in my view, we’re at a point where it just wouldn’t be practical to go through a redistricting exercise, but the court is the court and if they tell us that we have to do that then we will have to do that once we have exercised all our rights in all the courts that are available to us.”