7 News Belize

High Court Hail Mary?: PM Thinks Judge Can Pull Thru With A Decision By Tuesday
posted (April 3, 2019)

So now, only the Chief Justice can determine if there will be a referendum on April 10th.  He's having a hearing on Monday April 8th, and if he gives a judgement by the 9th - and it favors the government - then the injunction will be lifted, and the referendum will go through.  That's a lot of if's - and today the Prime Minister said he has confidence in the CJ:

Jules Vasquez
"Are you disappointed - we know you've been very outspoken about the performance of the bench but are you disappointed that the judge in the balance of interest would stop this huge locomotive which is called the ICJ referendum, which has been going down the mountain for so many years."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"Of course I'm disappointed, I am flabbergasted, I don't understand how it could have happened, but I'm not going to be critical of the judge, not at all. So I will leave it at that, I would never in a million years have imaged that given what you just described - far more eloquently that I ever could have, given those circumstances how on earth a court would stop sometime like this at the 11th hour. In my view, the fact alone that these people were so out of time, you don't wait until the last minute. In law, there is doctrine called latches that tells you that if you wait on the 11th hour, that alone should disqualify you from getting even to first base."

Jules Vasquez
"Are you concerned that the mills of justice under the chief justice which are known to grind exceedingly slow. Are you convinced that he will be ceased of the urgency of the matter because you want the hearing done Monday and a decision on Tuesday. That might be a first for his office."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow
"Well, all of this is a first and I believe that whatever else you might want to say about the chief justice, he's extremely intelligent and it doesn't take much intelligence to understand that the absolute gravity of the issue and therefore the absolute need for us to get that determination by Tuesday."

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