G.O.B.’s Lawyer Says It Needs to Rebuild Relationship with Indigenous Community

Andrew Marshalleck

Senior Counsel Andrew Marshalleck appeared on behalf of the Government of Belize. While he stated that G.O.B. doesn’t agree with the allegations being made by the claimants, he Marshalleck also said that both parties need to rebuild the relationship between the indigenous community and the government.

Andrew Marshalleck, Attorney-at-law

“Your honor, we of course don’t agree with factual allegations being made, but we see no point in getting into further dispute over that. If we assume for one moment that everything they say is true, where does that leave us in this court and how does this court, through any order it can conceivably make, seek to resolve those types of issues? The thing is, while there is a remedial jurisdiction, what the court cannot do is to order the parties to have trust and confidence in each other in embarking upon the process. That is something that has to be cultivated by the parties and nurtured and protected by them.  That is of course not felt or assisted any with allegations of bad faith, with the kinds of disputes that have been raised. From my perspective, I am new to this and I just started reading the papers and seeing how best to navigate to a successful conclusion of the steps that need to be taken to comply with the consent order. And quite frankly, coming up on allegations of that nature and a dispute of that nature makes nigh to impossible to reach the end of the road here. So we need to get back to rebuilding the relationship and re-establishing, if possible, that trust and confidence in each other in pursuing the steps that need to be taken to achieve the objectives that we all agreed must be achieved.”