So the takeaway from that is that there will be no referendum in April 10th - in the meantime the government will go to the house of representatives, possibly as early as Friday - and also to the Caribbean Court of Justice as soon as they can to get the Supreme Court injunction lifted.
And so, now, back to court, for the explanation of what forced the PM to postpone the referendum:
There was an entire day of arguments in front of the judges of the Court of Appeal.
Government went there to convince the panel of judges there to set the Chief Justice's injunction aside. But, the first issue that the Government had to contend with is that they needed permission from the court to bring the expedited appeal.
The hearing to ask for that permission happened today, and the Court of Appeal simply did not have enough space for all the attendees - mostly PUP members and supporters - who crammed the courtroom to listen in to the case themselves.
The Attorneys, Rodwell Williams and Lisa Shoman for the Government, and Eamon Courtenay for the PUP claimants, argued back and forth for the entire day trying to convince the panel of Appeal Court judges why they should or should not grant the Government an audience for their expedited hearing.
And when the judges returned after a short deliberation, they delivered a majority decision refusing to hear the Government's expedited appeal. They are of the view that they lack the jurisdiction to do so because the required passage of 21 days after the Chief Justice's decision has not happened.
That decision was handed down just before 5 o'clock this evening, and shortly after that, the attorney for the PUP exited court and gave us a preliminary reaction to yet another victory for his clients. Here's what he said less than 2 hours ago:
Eamon Courtenay, SC - Attorney for the Claimants
"This evening just a short while ago the court of appeal announced that it has reached a decision that it does not have jurisdiction to entertain the appeal that the prime minister and others wanted to present to the court of appeal and therefore they refused the application for an urgent of the appeal."
Reporter
"So what happens now? What is the next step if they decide as the AG has said that they are thinking the CCJ?"
Eamon Courtenay, SC - Attorney for the Claimants
"Well if they are thinking the CCJ, the procedure is laid out. They would have to get special leave from the CCJ and the CCJ will probably deal with that as the hearing of the appeal. There is a logistical problem. I mean its 24 hours basically. I mean the court - the CCL has met in urgent sessions like this before, but I think it's really for the government to decide what they are going to do."
Reporter
"Sir, what do you make of the court's ruling and the reasoning?"
Eamon Courtenay
"Well I think the law was on the side of the respondents. We referred to cases that had already been considered by this court, that a decision that had been made by this court. I think Mr. Williams attempted to try to get around the cases that had already been decided by this court. Insofar as this is concerned, what it says is that when you want to make an urgent application to the Court of Appeal, you must come by another way and it is not for me to advise them on what the proper procedure could have been but clearly they chose the wrong route."
Reporter
"Senior counsel do you think there is any way in hell that we will get to this referendum on Wednesday, looking at the logistics and looking at the timeframe?"
Eamon Courtenay
"Well, I mean as you heard, one of the issues was that the Chief Elections Officer had told her officers to proceed notwithstanding. I will hope that good sense will prevail and she would now issue an email and say listen, "dehn come with a left hook, dehn give wi wah upper cut; mek wi chill because after this." I mean the C.C.J. would then just knock them out cold. As I said, we relied on decided cases. I think the law in this area is clear. I think my learned friends were well aware that they had a very difficult case and in a matter like this for the C.C.J. to take it up as an urgent basis and to hear it because you have to be clear to them that the Court of Appeal has made a mistake and therefore they will grab it and correct it in time. My sense is that the government would not be able to show the C.C.J. at this stage overnight, that there is such a glaring error by the Court of Appeal that the C.C.J. has to grab it in order for the referendum to be held."
Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"For the second time in less than a week, the government has lost an iron clad case - they have been saying for sure that they would succeed in supreme court and they were sure they were going to succeed here at the court of appeals. I think what is of utmost importance is that maybe the government should hit the pause button. I don't think there is no magic as to having the referendum on the 10th April, this Wednesday, or even next month. I believe that it is time for the prime minister to seriously sit-down with the opposition for us to stop playing around with such an important issue. This is not a political issue. This is an issue of national importance where we should be addressing it together as a people, not PUP vs UDP, but as Belizeans. So today my appeal to the prime minister is kets hit the pause button, lets sit-down and talk and with respect to one another and see how we can move this process forward."
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