28.3 C
Belize City
Thursday, March 28, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

Photo: Students and staff of Stella Maris...

BPD awards 3 officers with Women Police of the Year

Photo: (l-r) Myrna Pena, Carmella Cacho, and...

Suicide on the rise!

Photo: Iveth Quintanilla, Mental Health Coordinator by Charles...

Opposition Senator Peyrefitte says end the curfew

HeadlineOpposition Senator Peyrefitte says end the curfew

BELIZE CITY, Fri. Jan. 22, 2021– Since December 2020, SI 175 has been in place across the country of Belize. This SI, enacted by the new People’s United Party’s government, imposes a number of restrictions on movement and activities — the most stringent of them being a seemingly indefinite curfew. Members of the public and the United Democratic Party have called on Government to put an end to this uncapped curfew, since the COVID-19 numbers have been on the decline within the country.

Some legal minds from the Opposition and in the public also assert that the imposition of the virtually indefinite curfew may be unconstitutional, and during a press conference, UDP senator Michael Peyefitte, called on the government to quickly announce an end to the curfew.

Senator Peyefitte argued that the Government of Belize instituted a curfew without declaring a State of Emergency, as was done in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic under the previous UDP administration. In response to previous calls made by the Opposition to end the curfew, the Minister of Home Affairs and New Growth Industries, Hon. Kareem Musa, had shared that the new regulation was put into place by virtue of section 83 of the Public and Health Act.

“He [the Minister of Home Affairs] says under section 83 of the Public Health Act, somehow, somebody can issue a curfew under there without necessarily declaring a state of emergency,” Senator Peyrefitte commented. He added, after reciting the specific section of the act referenced by Hon. Musa, that there is no part of that law that addresses the imposition of a curfew. He said that it is normally under section 18 of the Constitution that a curfew is implemented, and that this is done after the Governor-General declares a State of Emergency on the advice of the Government.

Senator Peyefitte stated that he believes this is the only way that a curfew can be legally imposed, and as a result, the current SI in place is arguably unconstitutional. “We are not against a curfew per se. I believe the curfew is one of the best tools to fight not just the disease but crime,” Peyrefitte noted, however.

“However our major issue, besides the fact that it can be illegal what we’re doing right now, is how can you have a curfew that restricts people movement for an indefinite period of time. There must be some cap to curfew period. I have never seen before a curfew period being set without an end date unless somebody can correct me, but I have never seen that before. The thing is that when you have a curfew without an end date, it tells us, or should tell us, that there is no plan,” Senator Peyrefitte said.

He went on to say, “Normally when you don’t have a plan or you don’t know what you are doing or you are stumbling everything out the blocks, you just shut everything down for no reason and then you decide when you will come out with some SI at the end of this month to determine when curfew will end. To me it is a sign that they don’t know what they are doing, and they are feeling their way in the dark. We believe that the government needs to very quickly say to the Belizean people when the curfew will end.”

The various GOB officials, including Prime Minister John Briceño, have said that the current SI is currently being revisited with a view to updating protocols by February 1, 2021.

Check out our other content

World Down Syndrome Day

Suicide on the rise!

Check out other tags:

International