D.P.P. says fear is the cause of nolle prosequis

At the opening of the 2009 Supreme Court session on Monday, Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh lamented on the high number of cases that are thrown out of court for lack of evidence. In 2008 alone there were eighty-three “nolle prosequi” a term which the C.J. said, even though is a combination of Latin and French, is fast becoming part of Belizean Kriol. But while the number of cases thrown out is staggeringly high, the person on whose shoulders lies the heavy burden of prosecutions at court, Cheryl-Lynn Branker-Taitt, says the number of nolle pros cases has been on a steady increase even before she was appointed to the post of D.P.P. But there is a trend as to why so many of the cases are unsuccessful and that is because victims and witnesses fear or lack interest in testifying.

Cheryl-Lynn Branker-Taitt, Director of Public Prosecutions
“The main problem that we’re facing right now is the refusal of witnesses to testify on a number of grounds, chiefly that they have been threatened and they’re afraid to go to court to testify. That accounts for the majority of the nolle prosequi that have been entered in the past few years. In 2006 the figure had risen to nearly fifty percent and in 2007 it was at fifty percent and again last year fifty percent of all of the cases that were taken to the Supreme Court ended up in nolle prosequi being entered.”