BELIZE CITY, Mon. Mar. 21, 2022– Last week, the Minister of Constitutional and Political Reform, Hon. Henry Charles Usher, told the media that the constitutional benchmark in regard to voter representation is for government to ensure “effective” and not “equal” representation. However, the Belize Peace Movement, in its redistricting case against the government’s Election and Boundaries Department, has highlighted the constitutional mandate for equal representation amongst the electoral divisions across the country.

“The constitution says that there must be effective representation; it does not say equal representation. Now effective representation has been defined throughout other jurisdictions. They have had redistricting exercises and court cases in other countries and judges have pronounced on what it means by effective representation. And certainly you have to look at different factors when it comes to the meaning of the word effective, including population, including transportation, including geography. So there are different factors that are put into place, but what is important that the constituencies are so made up that each constituency, the persons in those constituencies receive effective representation,” stated Minister Henry Usher.

Paul Morgan, a representative of the Belize Peace Movement, however, told us in an interview that Minister Usher needs to fact-check his information, and he asserted that the Constitution at no time refers to “effective representation” but speaks of “fair, equal” representation.

The redistricting case, which is currently still ongoing, went back to court on February 24, when the arguments from the Government side and BPM were heard and the judgment on the matter was deferred to a later date, said Morgÿþan.

In an interview following the establishment of the redistricting task force, Chief Elections Officer, Josephine Tamai said that the case would not have any influence on the work of the task force, which is scheduled to hand down its recommendation to the government of Belize in about a year or so.