And while you heard the caveats, the amended bill was passed unopposed today.
But, don't tell that to the Bar Association! The legal profession's leading light is like the guy who got to the party late, but they brought their own beer! Literally a day late, that organization weighed in on the controversial non profit organization bill - although their comments seem to centre on the previous version without the final amendments.
Their legal opinion is not in favor of the bill. Usefully, it outlines who is an NPO. Those include "The Belize Red Cross, the Scout Association of Belize, the Girl Guides Association of Belize, the Lion's Club, the Rotary Club, Help Age Belize, Hand in Hand Ministries Belize, Lifeline Foundation Belize and the Kolbe Foundation to...The Bill also catches private groups of persons raising funds from the public to assist with nutritional needs, medical or educational expenses for friends or family or some other section of the public- the Days of Healing, soup kitchen and weekend charitable barbecue activities of private persons...".
In this collective opinion, the bar finds that the "powers vested in the new NPO Registrar to act to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing are…powers that are…already vested in the Financial Intelligence Unit under the provisions of the Money Laundering and Terrorism (Prevention) Act." They concluded that "The Bill seeks…(to) create another bureaucracy" just to do the same thing to NPO's. The opinion says, quote, "It is unclear what NPOs in Belize have done to deserve such consideration and treatment. This flies in the face of the risk-based approach supposedly being promoted by the Bill." End quote.
From there they add, quote, "The practical need for the Bill must be questioned because there has not in the history of Belize ever been an allegation made against any NPO of the complicity in any money laundering or terrorist financing nor has there been any financial failure of NPOs giving rise to any need for the State to manage charitable activities."
They note also that the bill "abrogates fundamental constitutional rights to privacy and to property" and are not "proportionate with the threat".
And on the powers of NPO Registrar "to control and direct the management of the activities of an NPO" the bar says, quote, "It is unclear why these powers are needed in the first place particularly with regard to churches and other similar bodies, the achievement of the charitable objectives of which cannot be measured by any known objective standard... Similarly, how can the NPO Registrar properly ask the Court to order the services of a priest or pastor to be terminated by a church? How is it to be determined when the charitable objectives of the church are not being met?"
"The need for such supervision and powers appears fundamentally misconceived and may very well inevitably result in the violation of any of a number of fundamentally guaranteed constitutional rights of NPOs subjected to any exercise of those powers.
These powers of supervision over NPOs by the NPO Registrar appear largely unnecessary and likely serve no purpose other than to subject these charitable bodies to the vagaries of state action. They should be done away with entirely." End quote. But, despite all this, like we said, the bill was passed today without opposition.
