From the union halls to the halls of parliament, the Thirteenth Amendment is stirring up serious debate. This afternoon in Belize City, Opposition heavyweight Tracy Panton stepped up to the mic, leading a press conference to tackle what she called pressing national concerns. But the spotlight quickly turned to the controversial amendment. Opposition Senator Sheena Pitts didn’t hold back either, accusing the Briceño administration of trying to lower the bar for declaring a state of emergency.
Sharon Pitts, Opposition Senator
“ I said before, government is talentless. They cannot solve the crime problem. Instead, they are codifying the ability to suspend fundamental rights and freedoms, guised as prevention and control of crime. They openly, through this amendment, through legislation, accept that the state of emergencies that they imposed on Belizean people were unlawful and not consistent with the Constitution. So, since the court ruling, they change the Constitution, they say the two rulings are uncertain. You know what you do when you’re unhappy about a decision from the court, you appeal, go through the process that we have for appeal. But what does this bill intend to achieve? Because information is power, the Belizean public needs to know what is in this bill. They are creating new and lower thresholds for what constitutes a state of emergency. That is now the Governor General will need to be satisfied, simply satisfied on advice from the National Security Council on reasonable grounds that for public safety or public order in a specified area and for preventing, detecting or controlling crime in that area, a state of emergency exists. Now, what this bill is saying is that when that is declared, it will be declared for one month in the first instance by the GG but that it can be extended by resolution of the National Assembly for up to twelve months. Now, think of this, it takes a National Security Council to determine whether a state of emergency exists. Go to the GG and present that to her so that she can be satisfied to make such a declaration, but to extend it the National Assembly and the super majority could just say, yeah, it still exists we will extend it to another three months or another six months up to a year.”
