Will Government Settle Constitutional Claim With Budna?

Attorney General Anthony Sylvestre says the government has not yet taken a position on whether it will settle the constitutional claim brought by Joseph Budna, as the matter remains at an early stage in the court process.

Sylvestre said a case management conference was held recently to set timelines for the filing of witness statements and other court documents, though he said he did not have the specific dates to hand.

Asked whether a settlement would amount to the state accepting responsibility for what has been described as a high-level cover-up, Sylvestre rejected that characterisation. He said court outcomes are shaped by both facts and law.

He explained that the court has two key mechanisms it uses before a matter reaches trial. The first is mediation, where parties are encouraged to explore a resolution between themselves. The second is a judicial settlement conference, which Sylvestre described as the more useful of the two, where a senior counsel reviews both sides of the dispute and helps each party assess the strength of their position.

“If it is that the court may say, ‘But listen, say as what you may say, but these persons were police officers, and so you can’t escape.’ We don’t think that that is the state of the law at this point in time,” he said.

Budna filed a constitutional motion in the High Court alleging he was unlawfully arrested, tortured, and forcibly expelled from Belize to Guatemala in what he describes as a state‑sponsored extrajudicial rendition in September 2025.