Last night we told you about writer Godfrey Smith's provocative new book, called "Diary of a Recovering Politician".
It's a collection of essays where he speaks about some of the hard lessons in "realpolitik" learned as part of the Musa administration of 1998 to 2008. But, he also speaks about his career in the law, as both attorney and jurist, where he found judges puffed up with the pride and the trappings of high office, and hardly concerned with delivering justice to those who need it most.
In our exclusive sit down interview - we discussed his disillusionment with the law:
Jules Vasquez
"Twice you are seen in the book more than mocking or berating your colleagues for participating in the ceremonial opening of the Bar. It is actual disgust that one picks up."
Godfrey Smith, Author, Diary of a Recovering Politician
"I'm not a fan of the legal profession shall I say in the sense of in terms of being a tool to bring about social engineering and change. It can happen, but I mean if you take your mic and I am sure you often do and ask people what do they think of lawyers and the legal system. Do they see it as a force for good and not enough emphasis is placed on the places where ordinary folks access law and the justice system which is the magistrate's court. My experience as a judicial officer in the Eastern Caribbean is that judges have too much regard and pay too much attention to the trappings, the paraphernalia judging officers saluting you carrying your bags, wearing the robes and banning people from court if they don't have on proper dress and so on, without reminding yourself that you are there to deliver a product which is to solve a legal problem for somebody and to do it as quickly as you can."
"There is just a need to write and because I am stuck in the legal profession I can't just as I would like to, take off sufficient time to do a substantial concentrated body of work. So, in between that what can one do? One's mind is always churning with observation, ideas - one has the ken draw on the resource of one's experience. I hate to put it like that, but it's a kind of filler isn't it that writing an essay or 2,000 words or 3,000 words is not quite the painstaking effort of writing an entire book."
Jules Vasquez
"One has the sense that you are starting to scratch at the history that you were a part of, because you believe its important that history has to be recorded and told and the writer must have some fidelity to it."
Godfrey Smith
"Well certainly. I like to believe, well I hope that everything I've put in this book has, maintains fidelity to history as much accuracy as is possible. I. initially was very reserved about trying to write something about my deep experiences in politics and government in Belize. I suppose, because I ask myself but who would be interested in this, so I strive mightily to be of regional significance, but I enjoy those particular essays on local politics so much and as you say its important enough for students of history, historians, Belizean to politicians to have a proper documented piece of writing on that period of our political history."
Tomorrow, we'll have the final part of that interview where we talk about Lord Ashcroft who smith refers to in his book as, quote, "The Billionaire who befriended me."
