And the AG said that while they would have hoped to be able to enact more good governance legislation, her ministry is seriously lacking in human resources. And much like her colleagues in parliament, she blamed the previous administration.
Magali Marin Young, Attorney General
"Prime Minister's government in fact campaigned on good governance, if you were to review the Plan Belize manifesto you would see expressly in there the good governance measures that they have outlined. It has only been 5 months since we have taken office. I can assure you Prime Minister Briceno remains committed to good governance. My ministry has to work along with the ministry responsible for Public Service, Political and Constitutional Reform to look at legislative measure and we are looking at legislative measures but I can also tell you that we inherited an attorney general's ministry that is grossly understaffed in terms of the legal drafting unit. I only have two trained legal drafters at the attorney general's ministry. And they can barely cope with the day to day legislative demands of government. The former administration spent a lot on the hiring of private attorneys instead of investing in the AG ministry and so whereas we would like to do this as soon as possible, we are understaffed but there is the commitment to get it down."
"I can tell you that since taking office, because legal drafting is not a skill you develop overnight, there is actually specialized training that someone undergoes and gets a masters in legal drafting so it is not a skill that overnight I can develop in the unit. So I have approached various governments, I have approached the US government for assistance, I have approached the high commissioner of India when he visited Belize, to see if we could get legal drafters from that jurisdiction to assist us. So we are trying. India is under a COVID surge and we have not heard back but the UNDP has also offered to assist us and we are in the process of engaging with them for assistance in this regard."
We should note that the chronic shortage of resources in the AG's ministry are well known within the legal community.
