Supreme Court gets new face

If you have traveled in downtown Belize City since the beginning of June you would have noticed some construction going on near the Supreme Court. Well, the seventy-five year old building is getting a new face. Renovations on the Supreme Court, which will include restoring the exterior of the building, improving the interior and landscaping the yard will carry a bill of twenty thousand dollars. According to the Attorney General, Godfrey Smith, getting the building into ship shape is a hard job.

Godfrey Smith, Attorney General

“The biggest of which is the roof of the Supreme Court, which before the restoration, was composed of asbestos. The roof was essentially egg shells when the restoration. You will observe that the entire roof has been changed. Under the roof was rotted and dilapidated, that has been changed as well. The skirting of the building has seen some major restoration. The gardens behind the building…the gardening is being undertaken as well. There is some work going on inside, the registry is being air-conditioned. The hope is that it will be two or three phases; the first phase will be the restorations, focusing on the outside of the building. The second phase focusing on the inside of the building.”

“Beyond August thirty-first, the hope will be to enter on a pedestrianization project, which essentially will comprise of putting cobble stones around the building and pedestrianizing it. Putting in more trees and more garden park benches and that kind of thing.”

The renovations on the Supreme Court will conclude at the end of August, after which the pedestrianization project will begin.