This afternoon, Bobby Lopez, the chairman of the Belize Peace Movement, and their attorney, Arthur Saldivar, granted an interview to our colleagues from Plus TV in Belmopan. They said that although they've lost this part of the case, they are not discouraged. In fact, they intend to appeal, and they say that that if they have to, they will take this lawsuit all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice:
Arthur Saldivar, Attorney for BPM Claimants
"The court as the chief justice sees it does not have the jurisdiction to address the matter on its merits based on the fact that from her position that the writ of elections presents a bar. That is a view, it's a legal opinion and under our system it can be challenge and it is the intention of my clients to challenge that position."
Roberto Lopez, Chairman, Belize Peace Movement
"We are not the legal minds. We are ordinary citizens who recognize that there existed malapportionment. The special report confirmed that 72% of the constituencies were malapportioned. It confirmed that it violates all international norms. If you have 520% disparity between the smallest and the largest being Fort George and Stann Creek West how can you say that those are equal or nearly equal. We are not dampened at all. We are actually energized to get to this far. We were certainly hoping that she would have granted the other request that we made to now hear our case and so we are waiting for that, because our case will continue, but the ruling that took place today we shall appeal. It is our right as Belizean citizens to appeal a decision, so we shall take it to the court of appeal. We've always said that we would take it to the highest court. This is a leap of faith. This is a journey of faith and so we place our faith in God and we feel that our constitution also recognizing our supremacy of God expects us to do nothing less than to seek justice and to go as far as we can, so we are instructing our attorneys to appeal to the local appeal court and then we are prepared to go to the CCJ."
We have had an opportunity to skim through the report from Sean P. Trende, the independent expert which is advising the Supreme Court on how severely disproportioned the 31 constituencies are at this time.
From his assessment, he says, quote, " the vote of an elector in Fort George count's five times as much in the House of Representatives as the vote of an elector in Stann Creek West… The malapportionment is especially severe when we look at the district level..." End quote.
