And in political news, yesterday, you heard the prime minister say that discussing the Ben Juratowich legal opinion on the definitive agreement was "beating a dead horse."
And today, a senior member of his party reiterated those sentiments - which is obviously now the party line.
We asked Francis Fonseca what he thought of the advice, and whether he believed if the opinion was shared with Cabinet, it could have saved a lot of time and drama.
Today, he said that all of that is basically water under the bridge, since the government has already decided to reject the Definitive Agreement. But, he did reveal, quote remarkably that he has never seen the Juratowich opinion:
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"I've never seen the Juratowich opinion. My involvement in this matter has been in responding to a question from the Leader of the Opposition, I did so on behalf of the Attorney General, responding to the question. So as I've said in my response to that question, this matter is completed, I know some elements in our media want to continue flogging this dead horse but the bottom line of all of this is that the government of Belize, this Cabinet rejected the entire Definitive Agreement, this is a UDP agreement that came before us, we were advised as I've said in the House that we had a legal obligation to look at it and review it and that is how it ended up in front of the Cabinet, once we reviewed it, we made a full and final determination that it is not something that we would want to review and further advance and as the prime minister very dramatically demonstrated, we put an end to that agreement so that's the bottom line. You can twist and turn and look for all sorts of different angles at the end of the day, the bottom line is that this PUP government put an end to a corrupt UDP definitive agreement."
Courtney Menzies:
"Don't you think the process could have been shorter if the Cabinet was made aware of this opinion by one of the top international attorneys?"
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"What process?"
Courtney Menzies:
"The whole process of reviewing the definitive agreement. If you had known that Juratowich said it was unenforceable and unlawful, wouldn't it be easier to just tear it up from then?"
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"Well I think there were, again, there were competing opinions and different opinions on this matter and so we can only deal with what came to us. As I've said, what came to us was the legal opinion from Mr Mendes, distinguished senior counsel, queen's counsel, and based on his opinion, legal opinion, the advice was that the government faced the potential for legal liability and therefore we had an obligation to look at it, that was the advice and we did that. And very quickly dismissed the agreement."
