The Bar Has a Seat, But Do Defense Attorneys Have a Voice?

The fight over who sits on Belize’s bench has opened up a much bigger debate inside the legal community: who gets a voice when judges are being chosen? The Bar Association of Belize has a seat at the table through its representative on the Judicial and Legal Services Commission, but the Association of Defense Attorneys says criminal lawyers are being left out, even though they handle the bulk of criminal cases before the courts. That concern is now front and center, especially because the two new High Court appointments are for the criminal division. Tonight, both sides are making their case on representation, influence, and whether the current process truly reflects the wider legal profession.

 

Orson Elrington, Attorney at Law

“We have had those discussions for years now.  Successive governments have agreed that it is a necessary change that the Association of Defense Attorneys has a seat on the Judicial and Legal Services Commission. We have been promised that over and over again. And oddly enough, even the executives from the Bar Association claim that they too have said that the Association of Defense Attorneys by law should have a seat on the Judicial and Legal Services Commission. And we are saying it is not – by law that we are constitutionally entitled to a seat on the Judicial and Legal Services Commission.”

 

Jose Alpuche, President, Bar Association

“These people take on a lot of our criminal matters in the courts. They are an indispensable function of our judicial system because our system depends on attorneys, or criminal justice system depends on attorneys representing the accused. So me personally, I’m certainly grateful for all the attorneys who take up criminal defense. So I don’t want any sort of – give any sort of impression that we are at war or that there is some grand conflict between, say, members of the Bar Association who are maybe primarily civil practitioners and those who practice criminal defense. Members of our Bar Association also do take on criminal matters as well, so it’s not exclusive to the Association of Defense Attorneys. But we have no quarrel with the Association of Defense Attorneys. We think they do a great service to the public, to our system in general.”

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

Watch the full newscast here: