Briceño Administration Faces Heat Over Vacant Ombudsman Post

A key oversight role in government is now under the spotlight, and questions are mounting over why it’s still unfilled. Today in the House, Opposition Leader Tracy Panton pressed the Briceño administration about the more than five-month delay in appointing a new Ombudsman. In response, Prime Minister John Briceño says the process is more complex than it seems, pointing to a transition that will transform the office into a broader human rights body; one that, under a new agreement, must be led by a qualified attorney.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I think if she would have been following up on what is taking place, it is that the former Ombudsman brought a paper to Cabinet and he just signed on to something without thinking it through. Based on meeting he was getting from the EU and others, where they are converting the Ombudsman’s Office to a human rights office, which will now assume the work of the Ombudsman. But it is quite complicated. I think we are biting more than we can chew. So as it is right now, the attorney general is looking at it to see what kind of legislation we will have to put. We will not be able to put, the person who will head that office has to be a trained attorney and they have a whole slew of other things they will be responsible for. But it is important to note that despite the fact that we don’t have an Ombudsman, the office is open so that people can still of there, lodge their complaints and the people there can still help people.”

 

Lawmakers raised the issue during debate on Maria Arthurs’ re-appointment as Contractor General.

 

No Ombudsman; Why Is Belize’s Chief Complaints Office Still Vacant?

 

Five months on, Belize still has no Ombudsman, the key watchdog office for complaints of corruption and abuse. The post has been vacant since Major Gilbert Swaso’s contract expired last December, with no timeline for a replacement. Despite earlier assurances from Prime Minister John Briceño that the vacancy would be advertised, there’s been no update. The delay comes as government pushes changes to laws governing oversight bodies. At Wednesday’s Senate sitting, UDP Senator Sheena Pitts raised concerns, questioning why the post remains unfilled even as the government moves to reappoint Contractor General Maria Arthurs.

 

Sheena Pitts, UDP Senator

“We are here in June 2026 without having to deal with any great efficiency the appointment of an ombudsman for the Office of the Ombudsman, which is a constitutionally enshrined position that is meant to provide the service of check and balance for the Belizean people. The Ombudsman Act at Section three and seven, which provides that there should be an appointment, also makes provision that where there is no substantive office holder, there should be an acting office holder in the Office of the Ombudsman, and that is not the case either. So when leader of government business preys on us that we must understand the process of appointment, I don’t want that to be taken as if though we are squarely within that procedure and thereafter we will find it because the expiry of the contract for the Office of the Ombudsman was from the first December 2025. So as it stands in relation to that constitutionally guaranteed post, the Belizean public is left without such an office for which it could go for recourse for administrative review of government departments.”

 

The Senate voted in favor of reappointing Maria Arthurs, However, the appointment if the ombudsman remains unresolved.

 

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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