B.Q. who? The new Attorney General
Bernard 'BQ' Pitts
It had been in train for some time, and today Prime Minister Dean Barrow finally announced the changes to his Cabinet. They were neither sweeping nor inspiring. But at a time of severe pressures on the Government coffers, the changes increases Cabinet to twenty-three members and affects six ministers in the old deck. To cut to the chase, two new ministers are brought in from the private sector. The biggest surprise came in the appointment of Bernard Q Pitts as Attorney General. Pitts, is an old adversary of the Prime Minister and during the disturbances of the Heads of Agreement he was expelled from the UDP. That was in early 1990’s, and since that time Pitts continued to practice law primarily at the Magistrate Courts. Our legal sources say Pitts rarely appears in the Supreme Court and no one could recall seeing him appear in the Court of Appeal. According to the Prime Minister, Pitts will be required to carry out the necessary police and judicial reform.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“One other change that is being made that is also of particular importance in this context: police reform, magistrates court reform, judicial reform or at least creating the conditions for movement, creating movement so that we can see that together with whatever the police and the social ministries are doing we can move cases through the court process. We can perhaps have a dedicated court to deal with particular crimes. The crafting of new rules and regulations for the Police Department in the context of reform of the department and the need to strengthen internal discipline and accountability, the need for some degree of freedom consistent with due process to be able to root out rogue elements within the Belize Police Department. All these things will require a kind of legal backstop that also necessitates, in my view, the appointment of an Attorney General who can concentrate on just that. I have, therefore, asked Mr. B.Q. Pitts, Senior Counsel, to become the new Attorney General.”
With Pitts now in control of the office of the Attorney General, the Prime Minister said it would allow his predecessor, Wilfred “Sedi” Elrington to concentrate on Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade. Pitts and Elrington are partners in the Law Firm that bears their names.
