_{Jeremy Enriquez – Claimant in Redistricting Constitutional Claim and Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay}

Decision for election injunction application expected to be delivered next week.

Attorney General asks that case be dismissed

BELIZE CITY, Wed. Feb. 12, 2025

In six hours and a half, High Court Justice Tawanda Hondora heard the application for an injunction to stop the March 12 general election because no redistricting has occurred. While making his case management orders at the conclusion of the oral arguments, Justice Hondora remarked that, since he came to the Belize Bench (January 2024), this has been the fastest any case has been heard that he knows of. The parties are to submit their pleadings by Friday, February 14, and Hondora is expected to hand down his decision next week, unless he believes additional orders need to be made based on the pleadings and any potential changes on the ground. He allowed the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC), represented by Senior Counsel Godfrey Smith, to also enter pleadings, and that is to be done by Monday, February 17.

As we have shared, the Claimants – Jeremy Enriquez, Rudolph Norales and Jessica Tulcey – are represented by Senior Counsel Anand Ramlogan, who is originally from Trinidad and Tobago but who resides in the U.S. He was recently admitted to the Belize private Bar, and Justice Hondora allowed him to appear virtually for today’s oral hearings. However, due to difficulties hearing the Judge who prefers in-person appearances precisely to avoid technical glitches, the hearing was almost adjourned and the Judge offered two possibilities – that Ramlogan appear in person next week or that the Claimants retain local counsel. After a successful technical experiment to have the judge join the virtual platform on his device, the hearing proceeded, albeit with an echo whenever the Judge intervened.

But that was not the only hiccup that Ramlogan faced. Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay – representing Attorney General Anthony Sylvester, Jr., who is the only defendant named in the application – sought clarity on which application was before the Court (the original application or an amended notice of application), given that the rules in this jurisdiction dictate that only an amended application could be pursued. The issue was that the amended application did not include interim declarations sought in the initial claim. Ramlogan responded that the Government kept changing the goal posts almost by the hour, and they were merely trying to keep up, and so both applications ought to be live. Fortunately for him, the Judge went through an exercise for him to eliminate what had been overtaken by events in both applications due to the Prime Minister announcing the elections on the morning of Tuesday, March 11. For instance, in the initial application, an order of mandamus was sought to prevent the PM from calling the elections without first giving the Claimants five days’ notice. Now that the elections have been called, the amended application is for an order of mandamus against the Prime Minister directing him to revoke his advice to the Governor General (GG) to issue writs of elections, an interim injunction for the Governor General to be prevented from issuing a proclamation and writs of elections (but that, too, has already happened), and for an interim injunction against the Defendant (through servants and agents) from acting on the advice of the PM to the GG. The objective of the exercise was to ensure that the Court does not issue an order making declarations on points that are moot.

Making arguments on why the matter should be expedited, Ramlogan declared that not hearing the application urgently will “further the march the Government has stolen” in this matter. He added that every cent of public money spent on holding the election is “spent in violation of the Constitution.” Courtenay rebutted that there is no law which requires the Prime Minister to provide notice ahead of his elections announcement.

Asked which Claimants’ right would be violated by the holding of an election without a redivisioning, Ramlogan responded that the right to vote is exercised in elections and that the framers of the Constitution could never have intended that the right to vote is to be exercised in anything other than an election held in accordance with the Constitution. The reason why the election would violate the Constitution, according to Ramlogan, is that the EBC is in violation of Section 90(1)(a) of the Constitution regarding equality of votes, and an unconstitutional election would be contrary to the rule of law and therefore in violation of the right to his clients’ protection of the law. Ramlogan pleaded that the State’s conduct in this matter is “arbitrary, manifestly unfair, irrational, and violating of the rule of law.”

Confronted by the argument that the matter has already been adjudicated, Ramlogan says the present constitutional claim is different from the one brought by the Belize Peace Movement in 2019 because it speaks to constitutional violations.

Whereas Ramlogan argued that, having a majority in Parliament and in the House committees, the ruling party in Government controls what happens there, including the agenda; Courtenay argued that the Prime Minister himself cannot force Parliament to vote on any matter, including the “redistricting” bill featuring recommendations made by the EBC. He submitted that nowhere in Ramlogan’s claim did he identify a public duty that the PM has failed to perform, and neither did Claimant Jeremy Enriquez in his affidavit. Courtenay would later argue as well, that the Court itself cannot force any House committee to send back a bill to the House of Representatives for voting.

Primary among Courtenay’s submissions was that the setting of a date for elections and the issuance of a proclamation and writs of elections trigger a legal chain of events that cannot be stopped; and that if the court were to un-dissolve parliament, it would set a precedent for the Prime Minister to gain dictatorial powers to remain in office simply for the conduct of a redistricting exercise which may take some time. He added that the former is the very reason why former Acting Chief Justice Michelle Arana on October 28, 2020, also declined to grant the BPM an injunction ahead of the 2020 general elections, because the elections process had already been triggered. Her ruling read that she was “persuaded by the abundance of case law provided, which includes Privy Council and Caribbean Court of Justice decisions, that this court does not have inherent jurisdiction to hear this matter, as the election process has already begun.” Courtenay proclaimed that the application and fixed date claim are misconceived, and therefore asked the Court to refuse them. Courtenay remarked that the case should have been brought months ago to go through.

Courtenay also responded to the claims about the validity of the election by pointing out that such a challenge cannot be brought prior to the holding of an election, and that when such a challenge is brought, it should be done under the Representation of the People Act (ROPA).

Courtenay says he will report Ramlogan to Judicial and Legal Services Commission

After a break in the oral hearings for the application for an interim injunction against the holding of elections without a redistricting exercise being held first, Senior Counsel Anand Ramlogan put on record a serious claim against High Court Justice Tawanda Hondora. Ramlogan had taken about two hours to make his main submissions in the first part of the oral hearings, and they were about 45 minutes into the afternoon session when the Judge notified Ramlogan that he would only give him another half hour to end. When Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay remarked that that would take Ramlogan to an hour and 15 minutes, Ramlogan relayed that he had been notified by his junior counsels in Trinidad and Fort Lauderdale that during the break, when his mic apparently was still on, the Judge was heard saying that he was minded to dismiss the matter already. Ramlogan stated he had not himself heard the comment, but told the Judge that if that was his thinking, he should simply say so.

The defense attorneys erupted in shock, but Justice Hondora affirmed that Ramlogan’s statement was blatantly incorrect. Ramlogan then remarked that if he held by that, then he would continue with his submissions, and so he did.

When it was Courtenay’s turn to deliver his responsive submissions, he informed the Court that he would file a complaint against Ramlogan before the General Legal Council (GLC), given that he accused the Judge of judicial misconduct and did not apologize when the Judge indicated his accusation was incorrect. Courtenay described Ramlogan’s conduct as outrageous and scurrilous. He also made the claim that Ramlogan was merely paving the way for him to later claim that Hondora prejudged the matter.

Ramlogan told the court that he had no issue going before the GLC, but requested a copy of the unedited recording (with the break included) to be able to defend himself. The court has committed to provide the recording of the session.