Senate Approves Lucrative Pension Plan for Judiciary

As the Senate debated the Judges’ Salaries and Pensions Bill, the focus zeroed in on pay and perks at the very top of the judiciary. The proposed law would replace behind the scenes negotiations with a standardized package, covering salaries, benefits, security, and, for the first time, a formal pension for High Court and Court of Appeal judges. Supporters say uniform benefits would end uneven arrangements, where some judges move with heavy security and others have none, while strengthening judicial independence and attracting top legal minds. But senators pushed back on cost, questioning why already high paid officials should get more, why magistrates are left out, and whether taxpayers should shoulder a new pension plan with a short qualifying period.

 

Eamon Courtenay, Government Senator

“The Judiciary is, as I understand it from the High Court and the Court of Appeal, the only area in the government service or the public service where there is no provision in law for a pension and so this bill seeks to fill that gap. Judges are then called upon to enter into negotiations with the executive. Each individual judge to negotiate his or her salary package and emoluments, which creates differences in packages between judges of the High Court. Clause four of the bill seeks to provide for entitlement to a pension for judges who are in full time employment with the Government of Belize as a judge of the High Court or of the Court of Appeals. Most importantly, the pension scheme being introduce by the bill is a contributory pension scheme. Judges will have to contribute to the pension that they will become entitled to after the qualifying period of service.”

 

Patrick Faber, Opposition Senator

“Every single one of them, they go to work every day. They sit on the bench in their courthouses or their courtrooms across this country and they dispense justice just as those judges in the senior courts do and they deserve to be compensated. The package needs to include them as well. It is in fact one of the main points why we cannot support this bill because we insist Madam President that the magistracy be included.”

 

Judges of the High Court and Court of Appeals will qualify for pension of eighty-five percent of salary after serving on the bench for five years.

 

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.

 

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