But, if one senior officer of the court has his way, he won't return, even then. Leader of the Opposition and Senior Counsel Dean Barrow today declared that Anderson must go. Barrow today sat down with us to discuss the back and forth of hundreds of files between the DPP's office and the Raccoon Street police headquarters. He said that Anderson's bad acting is intolerable.
Hon. Dean Barrow, Senior Counsel
“It is horrendous Jules. We can’t find words really to describe the magnitude of this crisis. I believe that while he may have been right in the beginning, the moment the Director took that unprecedented and completely insupportable step, he wrong footed himself and wrong footed himself in so fundamental a way that he has exposed himself, in my view, to the sections of the constitutions, the provisions of the constitution, that mandate that action be taken against a DPP if he has shown himself incapable or unwilling to perform his functions or if he has misbehaved.
I think either limb of the provision will suffice for the authorities to move against him. And quite honestly, as unfortunate as it is, in my view, that is what now has to be done. It is not a procedure that ought to be lightly resorted to but in my view, the current circumstances absolutely justifies recourse to that procedure.”
Jules Vasquez,
But at this point you are not the executive, a member of the executive would have to initiate such proceedings against the DPP. Will you, with the government, will you push this in the bar? What’s next to see that this is done?
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“I believe that I can say without breaching any confidences that I have already called the Prime Minister to inform him as to my position. I won’t go beyond that. It is a matter for the executive but the executive now knows that from the point of view of the Opposition, I would certainly support the action contemplated by the constitution in circumstances such as these.”
Jules Vasquez,
Has the legacy of Kirk Anderson improve the standing of the DPP’s office of consequentially the state of justice in Belize or has he had an inconsequential effect?
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“Clearly not and it is not that he has had an inconsequential effect. He has had a negative effect. From the start there were questions of character involved. He has long since been viewed, to put it kindly, terribly erratic and thus this whole issue of character and kinds of judgment that he made during his incumbency is something that I believe plagued that incumbency throughout. The judgement, and it is a judgement that seems to have attracted a consensus, especially of late, the judgement was that the office for any of the various reasons that I outlined, and for additional reasons, simply was not producing in the way it should.
A simple thing, if you can’t keep personnel, you can’t be very effective. If, as DPP, you quarrel with all and sundry, including the judges on the bench, you are not going to be very effective. So in my view, without a doubt, the objective facts will show that it was a monumental error of judgement on Godfrey Smith’s part to have appointed Kirk Anderson in the first place.
And let’s recollect that he did so given his kitchen Cabinet, as you say this was at a time when Mr. Smith was very much the legal man around town with his reform plans and he had been able to seduce some leading lights in the Bar to backstop him and these people became known as his kitchen cabinet. When he wanted to appoint Kirk Anderson he did an end round around them. Let it be known and they were furious when they found out because there was already that feeling on the part of people of sober minds that notwithstanding his forensic abilities, Mr. Anderson did not have the personality and the character to be come DPP.”
Barrow granted that interview before the early afternoon press release in which it appears the Attorney General and the Prime Minister are convinced that relations between the Police and the DPP have been normalized. Still, Barrow says he plans to continue with the call for Anderson’s removal through section 108 of the constitution and will take that to next week's House meeting.
