GOB takes referendum to the Privy Council

Lisa Shoman

Lois Young

In other legal news, Senior Counsels Lois Young and Lisa Shoman, appeared on opposite sides before the Privy Council in London this morning over what is called “the referendum case”. This goes back to 2008 when the government tried to amend the human rights provisions of the Belize Constitution without taking the matter to a referendum. This proposed amendment was successfully challenged by a group of concerned Belizeans in the Supreme Court, which ruled on July twenty-eighth, 2008 that the government was acting illegally.  The government turned to the Court of Appeal, and on March twenty-seventh, 2009 the Appeals Court agreed with Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh that the government was wrong.  So GOB is now before the Privy Council. What this means is that taxpayers are paying Jamaican attorney Lloyd Barnett and Young to go all the way to London to argue that the government can take away rights under the Constitution without consulting the citizens in a referendum.