Back in June of 2022, PC Alicia Trapp was at the village council elections in Teakettle when she allegedly got into an altercation with the Cayo South area rep, Julius Espat. She then went live on Facebook to vent her frustration about what happened. While ordinary civilians do this everyday, for a police officer, it goes against their social media policy as well as their Public Service Regulations, which state that police officers are not supposed to engage in any political activity.
But the constitution of Belize guarantees freedom of expression and affiliation, and after PC Trapp was disciplinarily charged for her actions, she went ahead and filed a lawsuit against the police department and the ComPol himself.
And today, the court found partial merit in the claim, and it will proceed into a full trial. Trapp's attorney, Orson "OJ" Elrington told us more today.
O.J. Elrington, Attorney-At-Law
"In effect was that after the situation with Julius Espat that frivolous charges was brought against Ms. Alicia Trapp and in those charges they made it effectively clear that were the grounds and it is our submission that those grounds are outside of what is constitutionally allowed. Effectively we are saying that they, in bringing those charges, breached her constitutional right for her freedom of expression, and her freedom of political opinion. Ms. Alicia Trapp brought a claim against the Commissioner of Police, the Belize Police Department, the Government of Belize for breaches to her constitutional right."
"There was an application made by the respondents for a strike out. Essentially in the words of the commissioner to say that the claim had no merit and therefore should fall flat on its face. Well, we obviously proceeded to hear that application and basically to have a trial within a trial in which the 2 parties, both us as the claimants and them as the defendants made their necessary submissions and at the end of those proceedings, today the judgement so far as that application was handed down."
"Firstly, it is that the learned judge ruled that in deed our claim does have merit and that we are allowed to - we made some submissions to amend our claim form and so that permission was allowed and now the respondents/defendants must respond to those claims and so we will be proceeding to a full trial in this matter."
"I am cautiously optimistic that the law is on our side, that the constitutional rights of Ms. Alicia Trapp was violated by the actions of the Belize Police Department, the ComPol and by extension the Government of Belize."
Trapp and her attorney have 14 days to make the necessary amendments, thereafter the defendants will have 14 days to respond.
We did reach out to the Commissioner of Police for a comment, but up to news time he had not responded.
