New Chief Justice for Belize

Justice Kenneth Benjamin

A new Chief Justice has been named to succeed Abdulai Conteh whose tenure was cut short last September and is now on serving on the Bahamian Court of Appeal. The new chief justice is a Caribbean national of Guyanese/Antiguan nationality. Justice Kenneth A Benjamin will begin official duties on September fifteenth. He takes the bench as head of the Supreme Court at a critical time, when debate and public consultations will be robust on the proposed ninth amendment to the constitution which if passed will deny the court’s ability to review amendments to the constitution. Justice Benjamin’s CV states that he has experience on the laws of Commonwealth jurisdictions. He is a graduate of the University of the West Indies and the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago. The Justice has practiced law in Guyana where he also served as magistrate and was chief magistrate in Antigua and Barbuda. He has also served on the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court and the court of Appeal and at the time of his appointment he was on the bench of the St Lucia High Court. All in all, he has judicial experience spanning seventeen years.  Justice Benjamin is fifty-six year old, that would put nine years away from the prescribed constitutional retirement age of sixty-five.