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And while Esquivel wants Belizeans who returned home and wish to get into politics to make the required sacrifice, Belizean jurist Denys Barrow is doing something similar. He's served as a high court judge in St. Lucia, Grenada and British Virgin Islands between 2000 and 2005 and as a justice of appeal of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.  And now he's come home, he says to stay. Barrow will be a judge of the Belize Court of Appeal until his retirement and he told Jules Vasquez that coming to terms with it has been sobering.

Denys Barrow, Judge – Court of Appeal
“It is an honour. It is a humbling experience. It is a sobering step that I am taking because when I served abroad I think people from abroad knew that I was not one of them and whether I did good or did bad really didn’t matter much to them. I could just be a passing ship and be leaving after two to three years, whatever. This is home. I am not leaving and therefore what I do, how I perform will endure and I will be around to deal with the enduring nature of my performance. So it is quite sobering.”

Jules Vasquez,
“What is your feeling on the death penalty?”

Denys Barrow,
“Mixed feeling. It is not a penalty that, I have imposed it, I have supported as an appellate judge the imposition of the death penalty in one case, the Privy Council reversed me on the matter which was entirely unsurprising. But it is now established that the death penalty should be imposed on only in those cases which will be considered the worse of the worst. So it is an exceptional case in which you impose the death penalty. The death penalty exists as a matter of Belizean law. It is no part of my outlook to seek to change the law. That is for the general populace and their representatives. If the law is to be changed or if the law is to be retained, that is a matter for others. So long as it remains the law then it will be my duty as a judge to apply the law of the land. In terms of my own personal philosophy, again it is a very mixed response. I tend most times to want to see the abolition of the death penalty. There are those times when I think perhaps it ought not to be abolished.”

Jules Vasquez,
“The opinion or the perspective of the man in the market, one would say you are the brother of the Prime Minister, how can you fairly adjudicate a matter which may well involve the well being or the governance as determined by your older brother?”

Denys Barrow,
“I think that is a relatively easy question of me to answer because I am not the brother of the Prime Minister. I am the brother of Dean Barrow who happens to hold that office. But the office of a Justice of Appeal and the office of Prime Minister are too completely disconnected offices. I hold one, he holds the other. We function in our official capacities in relation to the respective positions we hold. Therefore when I am adjudicating it is not in relation to Dean Barrow my brother, it is in relation to those who are in control of the government. I have never had the slightest difficulty in going up against governments whoever may be in charge.”

Jules Vasquez,
“It is not unforeseeable that some case may arise which has to do with the sustenance of governance, the ability of the government, of the Dean Barrow administration to uphold itself. To make it absolutely clear, the fate of the administration hangs in the balance and you adjudicate the case. Are you able to do so with equanimity?”

Denys Barrow,
“Oh absolutely. I have complete confidence in my disposition. I accept of course as you said we are human beings, we are subject to emotions but I have always prided myself and I hope I have not been misleading myself all these years in my ability to compartmentalize and to separate things one from the other. What will engage me in any such case will be the merits of the case and I can look at the case, look at the merits and focus on those merits to the exclusion when I am doing that determinative process of the consequences.

The matter of my appointment is obviously for the reasons that you have averted to, a matter which has caused some discussion. I am very pleased with the way how the society has handled it. Being able to separate the individual and the reputation from the family relationship, from the political connection or the connection with political persons. I have every confidence that I am able to deal, to perform the functions of the office in a completely a-political way. As you know I have excellent friends on both sides of the political divide and I have never been blinded or affected by politics. But that is what I am saying. I think what I should be saying most of all is that I am grateful that people trust me to be able to do that.”

Jules Vasquez,
“In your opinion, and we are speaking in very general terms, which is supreme, the constitution or the parliament?”

Denys Barrow,
“Oh the constitution absolutely. I have no doubt.”

Jules Vasquez,
“If the Parliament was to follow all the provisions within the constitution for amending the constitution then the parliament will be within the bounds.”

Denys Barrow,
“I am not sure. As you know a constitution is said to be metaphorically a living, breathing thing, it is evolves even though the actual language in the constitution itself may not evolve or may not change or it may change by amendments, the constitution is treated as something which adjusts to the times in which we live from decade to decade.

Now if it is something that I have not read enough on to form even a strong preliminary review, I don’t know if the matter will come before me but when it does, if it does, I will eagerly look forward to having the best of legal representation made in relation to each side of the argument.

Even if I had at this stage a preliminary view on that aspect, I have every assurance that when I hear the arguments in court it will broaden my mind and bring into focus aspects which may have been out there, may have been averted to, but really not given proper concentration.”

Jules Vasquez,
”Having served in other territories in the Caribbean, is it your suspicion, your instinct, your intuition that Belize suffers from a certain, that the Belize legal practice suffers from a certain impoverishment whether it be from a lack of competition or a certain native instinct for a middleiness or if it be a lack of resources or a disconnection from the main body of jurisprudence within the territory itself, we are surrounded by Central American countries so there is not that process of feeding and breathing off each other?”

Denys Barrow,
“As a starting point let me say that in the OECS I sat in nine different countries on a repeat basis and whenever I was there, certainly in the earlier years I would think back to Belize and make that assessment, a quick assessment and sometimes a study in my mind of how we compare, we in Belize compare with the lawyers out there and I am very pleased to say that Belize is easily among the best of the best that they had out there.”

The next session of the Court of Appeal, which will be Barrow's first, is in September. Previously, he has served as a temporary judge of the Supreme Court of Belize.