Two New High Court Judges, None Belizean

Shyne Barrow

Two more judges will be appointed to the High Court in the coming days and neither of them is Belizean.  It’s an issue that has been raised before, one that the opposition has signaled as a gross disservice to our homegrown legal professionals. Opposition Leader Shyne Barrow began by pointing out that the letter informing him of the pending appointments came from the Cabinet Secretary who, “holds no remit in these constitutional matters”.  The crux of the matter, he says, is that there are over a hundred Belizean attorneys and over twelve former and current legal officers, including magistrates, who are highly qualified to fill the posts.

Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition

“What is our vision for Belize?  What is the plan to empower and uplift Belizeans?  What is our national pride?  If I were prime minister, my government and I would have found no greater joy than appointing our first indigenous Chief Justice.  And so, that is the direction we should be going in, but then you look again in the magistrate level when the Chief [Magistrate] retired, rather than put someone such as Tricia Pitts who was acting… Again, there’s a pattern, an alarming pattern than Belizeans are only good enough to be placeholders, according to the Briceno doctrine, but we are not good enough to actually fill the positions permanently and that is why you had the sickout, you had the protest in the courts recently because the pay is inadequate, while the foreigners come in and they get paid an exponentially increased pay scale.  You look at the recent appointees of justices to the High Court, I know for a fact that at least three Belizeans applied in the recent cycle and the justices that have been recently appointed, many of them do not have any experience on the bench.  Whereas, at least two of the three justices or two of the three legal professionals that applied in the recent cycle are currently on the bench or have bench experience.”