The year 2010 for Belize’s Judiciary and the legal fraternity generally, was marked by high turnover at all levels, an increased caseload, lower public confidence, and several direct attacks on the legal and judicial community itself.
As attorneys, legal officials and staff, jurists and the press gathered to mark the annual formal opening of the Supreme Court for the new year, there was some effort made to remember the many memorable events of 2010, but there was also an emphasis placed on breaking with the past, both in terms of the way justice is administered, and the reasons behind the methods used.
At the ecumenical service held at St. John’s Cathedral, Anglican Bishop Right Reverend Philip Wright spoke in his sermon of the twin roles of the courts and the church as guides of authority – the former as the ultimate recourse for justice, and the latter as the state’s “moral compass.”
“We have all heard the many mothers and families on the evening news and calling in on the talk shows, crying out for justice, ‘We want justice!’ And in the next breath they ask, ‘Where is the church?’”, the Bishop noted. “I take no offense when they do this. God help us when they stop caring about what the church thinks, and when they find they have no alternative but to take justice into their own hands without recourse to the law.”
He went on to call for the Church and court, and society generally, to work together, and warned that “grave harm comes to society when these institutions fail.”
Following the church services, the group — led by Acting Chief Justice Samuel Awich and his fellow judges, Attorney General Bernard Pitts, Solicitor General Oscar Ramjeet, Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryl-Lynn Vidal and senior counsels, including the returning Rodwell Williams, shot last May by armed assailants outside his law office a block away from the Cathedral — proceeded to the headquarters of the court in the center of town. There, after a mounted guard of honor, the gathering went upstairs to the Chief Justice’s chambers where they listened to a summary of the court’s work in the 2010 legal year.
The Chief Justice began the review with an acknowledgement of the transfer of Belize’s final appellate jurisdiction from the Privy Council in London to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, accomplished through the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution and the Caribbean Court of Justice Act (No. 5 of 2010), enacted by Statutory Instrument No. 42 of 2010 on June 1.
One case, Florencio Marin and Jose Coye v Attorney General (Appeal CV 5/2010), is slated for judgment at a later date and two others have been filed with the court.
C.J. Awich chided those who wished to continue with the Privy Council as surrendering to their “nostalgia for the past, rather than logic and good sense,” and added that appeals to the CCJ will cost litigants far less than the deposit fee of between BZ$250,000 and $300,000 for some cases – criminal cases, primarily manslaughter and murder, were usually taken up by human rights organizations based abroad. He also cited the expected development of regional case law and an emphasis on local circumstances in deciding cases as bases for supporting the move to the CCJ.
But according to Chief Justice Awich, the end of the Privy Council’s jurisdiction may well have been by mutual consent: “… by the year 2007, the desire to end the appellate jurisdiction of the Privy Council over cases from Belize had become mutual …, the Lord Chancellor in England (,) made it known to the Commonwealth Caribbean nations that appeals from the Caribbean took too much of the time of Privy Council judges, and without the Caribbean nations paying for [it]. One might say that Belize departed from the Privy Council before being forced to leave.”
Turning to local concerns, Chief Justice Awich discussed the Judiciary’s plans for improving the quality of professional development and experience of its staff, particularly in the Magistracy. Two qualified attorneys, Patricia Arana and Richard Bradley, Jr., son of the prominent attorney of the same name, were last year appointed magistrates in San Pedro and Belize City, and four others joined the ranks – Dale Cayetano, Adolph Lucas, Jr., Linden Flowers and Keila Teck.
The C.J. explained that to be considered now for a post in the Magistracy, one must be a qualified attorney, though not necessarily a practicing one. Next in line to be considered are those with law and law-related degrees, followed by those with diplomas and certificates in law practice. He added that the Judiciary is recommending a clear career path of development and progression to retain qualified personnel, including more posts for principal magistrates below the Chief Magistrate and Senior Magistrate, and eventually to have the latter post be senior at the district level. Also, he called for expansion of the staff for appellate courts; suggested that land be set aside for judicial complexes in each district to resolve the issue of space for the courts; and commented on the trend of aggrieved attorneys and members of the press making “unbecoming statements” about court judgments and specific judges and magistrates, warning that this will not be accepted and that contempt of court may be contemplated and instituted if the situation continues to deteriorate.
President of the Bar Association, Jacqueline Marshalleck, called for a recommitment to the principles of justice in order to restore confidence in the system and called on the Executive and Judiciary to dialogue between themselves and with the people on legislation, legal aid, and the conditions of the courts and jurists, particularly retirement age and service contracts.
Attorney General Pitts, speaking for the first time in such a setting since replacing Wilfred Elrington in that post last June, cited last June 1 as Belize’s “birth date of judicial independence” with its move to the CCJ, and noted that the recommendation of the committee he chairs on a new Chief Justice is ‘imminent.’ He also noted efforts to revise Belize’s laws, train judges and magistrates, and pass appropriate legislation to deal with the crime situation.
Crime was not far from the minds of those present, having been so large a part of the legal fraternity’s reality in 2010. In addition to the attack on senior counsel Williams, there was the brutal double murder of attorney Richard Stuart and his wife Maria at their Graduate Crescent home last October, for which 2 Guatemalan men were charged, and the broad daylight slaying of reputed gang boss Andre Trapp in the NICH parking lot on Regent Street, after he had exited No. 2 Magistrate’s Court following an appearance on a drug possession case in June. The C.J. cited the number of homicides in 2010 as 132 (the Police Department has announced the official figure as 129). Either way, the general rise in crime, he said, provoked the populace to stand up against it.
Also remembered were those who departed from the Judiciary’s ranks, first and foremost former Chief Justice Dr. Abdulai Conteh at the end of last September after reaching retirement age in August. Fellow Justice Sir John Muria and long-standing Court of Appeal justices President Elliott Mottley and Boyd Carey also left our shores, the former having served out his technical assistance contract with the Commonwealth, President Mottley resigning and Justice Carey retiring. Their replacements included Awich himself, Justice Manuel Sosa as President of the Court of Appeal, and, soon, according to the A.G., two Australian judges for the Supreme Court. Also welcomed here were Guyanese Supreme Court Justice Denis Hanomansingh and Court of Appeal judge from the Eastern Caribbean, Brian Alleyne.
Supreme Court Justice Michelle Arana is on leave and expected to return in April, and three magistrates – Kathleen Lewis, Hurl Hamilton and Edd Usher – were given study leave to pursue CLEs (the former two) and a Master’s in Law (the latter).
The courts’ performance in dispensing of cases was cause for some self-congratulation. At the Court of Appeal, 85% of criminal cases and 96% of civil cases were concluded in 2010, including some carried over from previous years. In the Supreme Court,78% of civil claims and 84% of divorce and adoption cases were completed, and more criminal trials were completed (191) than filed (156). The Magistrate’s Courts completed 83.2% of their total criminal cases and 75.6% of their total civil cases. At the Family Court, 245 criminal cases were filed (it is not known how many were completed).
Murder (45) and attempted murder (30) comprised the majority of the new cases in the Supreme Court. Seventy-two other cases concerning crimes classified as major crimes (including 38 rape and carnal knowledge cases) are on file; just 39 are for crimes other than major crimes. No statistics were given on conviction rates, long considered to be dismal, particularly for murder.
The Supreme Court meets four times a year, in January, April, June and October, and operates in three jurisdictions: North (Corozal and Orange Walk); Central (Belize and Cayo); and South (Stann Creek and Toledo).