The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) fired off a press release on Tuesday, June 24, attacking the Bar Association of Belize for its opposition to the re-appointment of Justice Samuel Lungole Awich to the Court of Appeal.

Captioned “Office of the Prime Minister Responds to Attacks on Justice Awich,” the release, in its first paragraph, speaks about “the continued attacks by some lawyers on Justice of Appeal Mr. Samuel Awich”. “These attacks, using the Belize Bar Association Resolution as their springboard, are contemptuous and contemptible. They seek to scandalize the Belize Court of Appeal by alleging bias on the part of a member of that court, and may well be actionable by the Director of Public Prosecutions,” stated the release.

The release goes further, saying that “Cabinet will actively consider a course of action that will address the situation in which a puny, eighteen-person minority can purport to speak in the name of all lawyers in Belize.”

According to Andrew Marshalleck, who is one of the attorneys that the OPM release singled out, “there were more than enough members present to form a quorum.”

Marshalleck said that there were about 22 members present who voted on the resolution.
When asked what could PM Barrow possibly be alluding to with his reference to Cabinet, Marshalleck said that the Prime Minister might want to introduce amendments to the Bar Association Act.

In addition to Marshalleck and his wife Jacqueline Marshalleck, who is a past president of the Bar Association, the OPM release also mentioned Eamon Courtenay, the Bar’s current president, as persons “with obvious interests to serve.”

“Of course, the cover of the Bar Resolution is much resorted to by those acting on instructions and with malice aforethought,” the release said.

In response to the assertions made by the release, Marshalleck said, however, “We never considered making any attack on the judiciary, on the courts. We were very careful how we dealt with the matter. When you are considering the appointment of a judge to the court, you must be careful with what you say.”

On Monday, June 2, the Belize Bar Association had held a special meeting at which it passed a resolution opposing the appointment of Justice Awich. The Leader of the Opposition, Francis Fonseca, who constitutionally must be consulted on judicial appointments, also opposed Justice Awich’s appointment.

Both the Bar and the Leader of the Opposition had opposed Justice Awich’s appointment to the Court of Appeal since 2012, when his appointment was first proposed.

Marshalleck said the purpose of the resolution was to criticize the manner in which the appointment of the Justice was made, and the Bar merely repeated what it had said two years before. The resolution went no further, precisely out of concern and regard for the court, said Marshalleck.

“It is unfortunate that the press release sought to frame the issue in terms of a dispute [between] the Bar and Judge Awich. While historically, there has been such a dispute, the current issue isn’t so much a manifestation of that; it is a criticism of the way Government has chosen to handle the reappointment of Justice Awich. The release gives the impression that they are now championing the cause of Mr. Justice Awich,” Marshalleck said.

“We condemn the use of short-term contracts. And, there is another aspect to it: privately negotiated contracts. Each judge negotiates his contract with the government and that provides an opportunity for all sorts of things,” Marshalleck went on to explain.

The Prime Minister’s release says that it is an offence to write or do anything “with intent to excite any popular prejudice for or against any party to [court] proceedings. And there are cases pending before the court having to do with both (a) the acquisition of BTL and BEL (which case is definitely not at an end) and (b) the Bar Association against the Government of Belize on amendments to the Constitution on appointment of Judges of the Court of Appeal.”

Godfrey Smith, SC, an attorney who is both the new national campaign manager for the Opposition People’s United Party (PUP), and one of the leading attorneys for the Ashcroft Alliance, weighed in on the OPM press release, telling reporters on Wednesday, “I think it is embarrassing to the Prime Minister. I think it is irresponsible for what was said in that statement to have been said. I think it is wrong to use such a high office to issue not-so-veiled threats of criminal action against individuals who speak out, who exercise their freedom of expression, to speak out about a particular issue like the continued tenure of the judge based on a Bar Association resolution which went strictly to the process of extending the judge..”

The Opposition People’s United Party issued a press release which characterized the OPM press release as “personal in nature, intimidating and threatening in tone and reckless and irresponsible for an official statement issued from the Office of the Prime Minister.”

The PUP release added: “This kind of prime ministerial bullying and intimidation is ugly, divisive and unacceptable.”