7 News Belize

PM Says Lost A Battle, But Not the War, Pushes Forward to April 10th
posted (April 3, 2019)

And while the lawyers for both sides have a clinical perspective - and even the government attorney have sort of accepted a postponement of the referendum, not so for the Prime Minister!  

This evening at an emergency press conference, hastily called after the earth shattering judgement, the Prime Minister said he was floored at hearing the judgement, but is determined to somehow still have it on April 10th.  Here's his plan:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"You could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard the decision. There is just no way in my mind that I can rationally explain it. We may have lost a battle; we will absolutely win the war. My disappointment is of course based on the fact that there has been all this preparation; there has been the frenzied effort to get our people properly informed. There has been the tremendous hard work done by the referendum unit, by the public officers. There has been this intense thorough going, absolutely healthy debate and if this judgement were to mean the end of the road, I would be absolutely furious at the fact that the people of this country would have been deprived of their opportunity to make a decision - whether yes or no."

And to do his best to make sure that there is a referendum next Wednesday, the Government has a three part strategy.  The first is an application to the judge to adjust the injunction:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow
"There will be an application to the judge to vary his order so that the referendum might proceed without their being a certification of the results of the vote by the chief elections officer until the larger case would have been completed. At the same time, the chief justice has already signaled that in fact the substantive matter will proceed and will begin on Monday. Now, I don't see why given the urgency of the situation, that substantive hearing can't be concluded Monday evening and why there can't be a decision on Tuesday and I would certainly expect such a decision to in fact ultimately uphold the referendum proceeding on Wednesday."

And, while that is one track in the Supreme Court, the government will also be going to the Court of Appeal at the same time - asking for the intervention of that higher court: 

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow
"We will seek to get before the Belize court of appeal immediately - I don't mean today but we will file the application certainly first thing tomorrow morning and we believe that it is perfectly open to the court to hear our application for interim relief on an urgent basis. We have every hope of getting a result that will allow us to proceed on Wednesday. In the event we don't, we are absolutely confident that any postponement will be a short term postponement. We are completely sure of an eventual outcome that will allow this referendum to proceed and that will give the people of this country what is their absolute right - to make a determination one way or another. If we don't get through by Wednesday, it is certainly my expectation, not just my hope - that this will ultimately galvanize Belizeans and we would therefore be in a position where when the referendum is held - whether Wednesday or thereafter, we will see a larger turnout than might perhaps otherwise would have occurred."

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