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The Briceno government has won a victory in court over the redistricting issue. On Thursday, High Court Judge Nadine Nabie ruled that the Electoral and Boundaries Commission did comply with the consent decree when it provided its redistricting report. The ruling came in response to an application filed by the Belize Peace Movement to delineate the boundaries of the current electoral districts. Back in May, the movement argued that the redistricting report, which the Electoral and Boundaries Commission prepared and presented to the National Assembly in July 2023, failed to achieve electoral equality between constituencies. BPM’s lawyer Arthur Saldivar argued that the court should have struck down Schedule I of the Representation of the People Act. Meanwhile, Assistant Attorney General Samantha Matute said the government had complied even though the bill had not yet been presented to the House of Representatives. The judge sided with the government and dismissed the motion. Today, we hear from BPM consultant Paul Morgan on the ruling and what it means for the group’s efforts to initiate the exercise.
Paul Morgan, BPM consultant: “We filed our application around August last year and now we just received the ruling on Thursday that the application was dismissed. That doesn’t mean that we didn’t try, our efforts didn’t bring a difference, the difference from the largest to the smallest was five times, we brought it down to two and a half times in the new proposal that the Elections and Boundaries Commission submitted to Parliament, which was still not good enough. The reason we resubmitted the application was that we were concerned that the government might not be honest, that they didn’t have good faith, as I said, they have always been two-faced, that they would find some way to conduct an election without actually doing the redistricting, even though the proposal was made. So the judge ruled that this was not the right path and in fact the government did what they should have done. With all due respect to the court, we disagree with that. The court did not do justice in this matter because we in Belize at least deserve our constitution, our constitutional tradition that no constituency should have a population more than 1.5 times that of another constituency. But it doesn’t bring closure to the whole thing because from now on we have to go back to court, which is an option. We can go back to court in many ways to re-litigate, we can go back to court to appeal and so on, or we can do nothing, but that is not an option for us, not a good option.”
Although the BPM’s latest attempt to force the government to act was unsuccessful, Morgan said the group will continue to rallied to demand redistricting before the next general election.
Paul Morgan, BPM consultant: “From now on, carrying this burden alone is not the answer. We have to insist that Belizeans understand what is going on, and that means the media, educational institutions, financial institutions, everybody, especially the Bar Association, which we need help with. The unions, what are they doing? Belizeans have to start understanding that democracy is not a free gift from God. Democracy is an organizational position that we have to maintain, and those who have power are not going to give it up, so everybody, it’s everybody’s job. I want to call on every single Belizean to do something about this, because if you don’t, the current government is not going to do what they should do to allow us to have our political rights to vote freely and to have equal voting rights. So I call on the media, the financial institutions, the chambers of commerce, the unions, the educational institutions, please unite in the streets, unite in your articles, unite in your discussions so that the government understands that we Belizeans need to be treated equally, that’s the only way to develop.”
The report is still pending review by a House committee, and it is unclear when and if the House will pass it.
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