Coming up shortly we'll have the story one of the last judgements to be delivered by Justice Lisa Shoman. She's leaving the bench along with a number of other judges before the start of the new year.
Both the criminal and civil divisions of the court are impaired by this exodus of judges - and two days ago in Dangriga, one senior legal practitioner lamented the state of the bench.
He criticized those who appoint foreign judges and said there are capable Belizeans who can fill the vacant posts:
Dickie Bradley, Attorney-At-Law
"The former judges of the Supreme Court on the criminal side, John Troadio Gonzalez and Justice Lucas, we still call their name, we still praise them up because the calibre of judges that are being thrown at the country right now is way below what we are used to, people like Anthony Sylvestre and the Director of Public Prosecution should be sitting on the bench to help us to have fairness and justice. You saw me speaking with a lawyer who just came out of that Supreme Court just now, she is so upset she applied for bail for a person and the judge just said I will deal with that next week. This is Christmas you know, Jesus wants everybody to, he himself says you have to treat the prisoners fairly, you are only accused of a crime, you are not to be punished with bail, you're not to be punished with bail, bail is not to punish a person. The committee is legally a Judicial, Legal and Judicial services commission. They are doing Belize, they are doing the people of our country, your country and my country, they are doing us a great disservice by dumping people and judges on us when especially we have the calibre, the quality and the ability right here in our country. I have called you two names, the other lawyers have 5-6 names of people who you know? It's....excuse me what is going on in Belize? Why are we raking up people to come here and be judges in our country when we have people here? So, the bar association's president or whoever represents the bar that sits on that commission and whoever from the solicitor general's office sits on that commission they di do we wah low."
