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Instead, the Opposition's legal team outmaneuvered the Government attorneys, and won legal battles in both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. Tonight, Daniel Ortiz takes a look back at the series of events which forced the Barrow Administration into postponing the referendum until further notice. Here's that story:

Daniel Ortiz reporting
The genesis of this PUP challenge, which has now become a thorn in the Barrow Government's side, was first unveiled publicly in February as simply just a legal opinion produced by 3 attorneys who either have present or past connections to the Opposition.

File: February 19th, 2019
Kareem Musa - Attorney.
"It cannot be that the minister and the government and a few other individuals can look at a document and review it and say that we speak on behalf of an entire country and we are going to take an entire country to the international court of justice without first, putting it to the people and by putting it to the people I mean taking it to the national assembly for ratification."

Anthony Sylvestre - Attorney
"In order for the country's boundaries to be redefined, the National Assembly has to give that authority to the I.C.J. but as is the case presently that has not been done."

A few days later, Lisa Shoman, who would go on to become the Government's lead attorney on this challenge, commented back when she was simply just another Belizean looking on.

File: February 20, 2019
Lisa Shoman - Attorney
"There is no giving up of the powers of the national assembly to the ICJ. That is simply speculative, it is an interesting idea, it is one of these legal arguments that lawyers love to argue when we are taking a drink. But it is not practical."

But, a few select PUP parliamentarians disagreed, and about 1 month later, they filed a lawsuit premised on this same legal opinion. They went to the Chief Justice to apply for an injunction stop the Government from holding the referendum, so that their grievances with the Special Agreement could be heard and decided upon by the Supreme Court.

File: March 15, 2019
Hon. Cordel Hyde - PUP Parliamentarian/Claimant
"We consider this matter to be very serious, and we're very pleased that the Chief Justice has agreed to hear this case. We know that the other side has tried to make a point about us bringing this matter late, but I want to emphasize that after we got the opinion from learned attorney Anthony Sylvestre, we had our other attorneys look very closely at it very quickly, and we moved expeditiously to file this matter in court."

Reporter
"Is there a real prospect of success from these claimants? We're only 20 days away from the referendum."

Lisa Shoman, SC
"You know I'm going to say no to that, however, that will be left up to the court. The Chief Justice has already said that the substantive matter will not be heard now. But, he had a date for first hearing for April 1st."

Fast forward to April 1st. That's when the Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin, listened to arguments on both sides why he should or should not grant this injunction. The Government's lead attorney was projecting confidence that their side would prevail against the PUP claimants.

File: April 1st, 2019
Lisa Shoman, SC - Attorney for GOB
"I am sorry I am going to be a little bit flippant, this is to me a perhaps tacos, with some maybe sprinkled inside and a serving of if in addition thereto. It's an if tortilla rolling up some maybe and perhaps tacos. This is really very far to ask the court to stretch."

2 days later, the ruling came down and the PUP won their injunction; The Chief Justice obviously thought more of this claim than attorney Lisa Shoman did.

File: April 3rd, 2019
Eamon Courtenay, SC - Attorney for the Claimants
"What has happened just now is that the Chief Justice has found that there is an arguable case, that the procedure under which the referendum has been launched by the Government, may be irregular. We are satisfied that we have more than a good argument to make on it, and as a result of his concern as to the propriety of the referendum process, he has issued an injunction restraining the holding of the referendum on Wednesday."

Courtenay even had some shade to throw at Shoman, for underestimating their case.

Eamon Courtenay, SC
"A lesson to all young attorneys. You shouldn't come on the television gloating before the judgement. You must wait until after the judgement, and then you speak."

Immediately after the judgement, the Government's legal minds were already concocting a plan to get the injunction lifted so that the referendum would have been held today.

File: April 4th, 2019
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General
"We plan on appealing the decision, so I don't want to comment on the details of it until the matter has been completed and the process has been drawn to its conclusion in the courts."

Reporter
"Were you at all prepare for such an outcome today?"

Hon. Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General
"Absolutely. I've already signed the appeal forms and those will go in no later than tomorrow morning and hopefully we can get a hearing before the court of appeal before April 10th."

Prime Minister Barrow was projecting confidence that his Government could still reverse this Chief Justice's decision so that the deadline could still be met.

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"We may have lost a battle; we will absolutely win the war.

"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."

When the Court of Appeal did grant the Government an audience on Monday, 2 days before the scheduled date of the referendum, the PUP argued strenuously in front of the the judges that they should uphold the injunction.

A majority decision announced later that evening revealing that the Government had lost yet another battle.

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, "They came with a left hook, They gave us an uppercut; let us chill because after this, I mean the C.C.J. would then just knock them out cold."

Later that evening, Prime Minister Barrow conceded defeat, and announced that there would be no referendum on April 10th.

File April 8th, 2019
Rt. Hon Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"In consequence of what happened today we will not be having a referendum on Wednesday April 10th… I repeat, this Government is determined and will absolutely find a way to have that injunction held within the next one to two months. We will not allow the Belizean people to be deprived of their fundamental right to decide on this issue."

Of important note is that the main contention that the PUP has raised to convince the Chief Justice to grant the injunction failed. They say that the 2008 Special Agreement between Belize and Guatemala to go to the ICJ was illegally and unconstitutionally approved.

A Government press release from last week Thursday explained, quote, "The Chief Justice ruled that the 2008 Special Agreement is valid because it was properly executed. The Chief Justice rejected this substantial point." End quote.

He granted the injunction to examine the validity of the writ of Referendum. Government now goes to the house on Tuesday to try and cure that arguable oversight.