Barrow resorts to nationalist fervor to support 9th Amendment

Dean Barrow

The amendment is a radical departure from the current Constitution and is likely to be the subject of heated debates and challenges in Courts by human rights advocates, the Bar Association and others. In the bid to entrench ownership of the utilities in the government hands, the Prime Minister resorted to nationalist fervor to sell his case.

Dean Barrow

“When we fixed what had happened in the Court of Appeal it was so that Belizeans could get back B.T.L. So I’m saying Mr. Speaker that once a case is over the legislature is free to act by way of a regular law to properly address any situation created by a judgment.  That is what we are doing now except that we are doing it by way of a constitutional amendment.  So please let the nation give no credence whatsoever to any notion that in fixing the B.T.L. situation in this manner we are violating the rule of law.  Indeed we are acting pursuant to the rule of law and at the very highest level, the level of our constitution.

The second and last point is this, what we did when we first took B.T.L. was never wrong.  It was always right.  There were of course, according to the Court of Appeal, procedural missteps that brought us up short before that tribunal.  But it was always conceded that once we got the drafting right we were entitled under our democracy to acquire utilities in the public interest.  So our nationalization was morally and politically correct even if legally flawed and it is a matter of the greatest justice now that we are curing the defects via the supreme law of the land the Belize Constitution.  In so doing Mr. Speaker we are proud to be giving light, water and telephone to the good people of this country forever as part of the inalienable right, giving light, water and telephone to the good people of this country forever as part of their inalienable patrimony of our beloved Belize.”

It is basically to enshrine government ownership in the amount of at least fifty-one percent of the three utility companies: B.E.L., B.W.S.L. and B.T.L. It is also to ensure that the reacquisition of B.T.L. and the acquisition of B.E.L. are placed beyond legal challenge.”

The proposed constitutional amendment will be have to be taken to public consultations before it can be passed and signed into law. It is surely to stir debate before it gets to that point.