Who will be the new president of the Court of Appeal?
boyd carey
And who will be the new president of the Court of Appeal? That’s the million dollar question for today. In response to Francis Fonseca’s statement on the state of the judiciary, the prime minister went to lengths to explain that Justice Boyd Carey and the former president Elliott Mottley were too old and had served their time. But according to the prime minister, the vacancies pave the way for the “Belizeanization” of the court of appeal.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
dean barrow
“Justice Carey did give excellent service. Justice Carey is, I believe, eighty-one years old. Now he does appear to me to be in good health but eighty-one years old so in my view Justice Carey had served his time. Eighty-one years old and there needed to be space made on the Court of Appeal and I will not apologize for this in order to help with the process of Belizeanization. Justice Carey had a contract that expired at a point in time. When it expired we indicated at a particular juncture that having reached your eightieth birthday we would seek to get somebody else. What on earth is wrong with that? Eighty-one years old? And he didn’t do anything, the man’s contract expired so if we choose not to renew a judge’s, justice of appeal’s contract because we feel he has reached an age where we can say to him genuinely, thank you very much for your absolutely stellar and distinguished service but we want to move on… that is what life is about. That is what happens, old people give way to new people, generation gives way to generation. That is the rhythm and cycle of life and society. In the case of Mister Justice Mottley, we went to speak with him, the Attorney General went to speak with him, i wasn’t there. But the Attorney General tells me that Mister Justice Mottley indicated that he had in any event intended to resign at the end of the year because he believed that with two Belizeans on the court, it was time for the presidency of the Court of Appeal to be Belizeanized.”
Barrow also told the House that Mottley has a huge practice in Barbados and he was told by the Attorney General that Mottley intended to resign.
I don’t want to be accused of ageism or any other isms but Eighty-One years old? Come on, no matter how intelligent this man was, his cognitive skills would begin to show some level of decline. Nothing against foreigners with the right credential either however it is also time that we appoint a Belizean to this post. Why do we always support foreigners to important post in Belize? Its as though we don’t have confidence to do the jobs ourselves. I imagine its only a matter of time before we look to appoint a foreign Prime Minister because we think he/she will do better. Oh I forgot, we already did that with the Palestinian. Oops just kidding! Joke aside we have a few very capable people who can perform well, given the chance. Only thing is that the appointment must appear to be fair and transparent because there will always those ready to pounce on it.