The People's Constitutional Commission continues holding its nationwide consultation and today in Belize City - they met with the media - actually all license holders who are radio and TV broadcasters.
Luis Wade represents the media:
Louis Wade, Media Representative, P.C.C.
"We felt that Belize City is the hub of media and, therefore, in collaboration with the Belize City zone leader, Mrs. Maria Zabaneh, we decided that this would be a great opportunity to meet the media and to hear personally from both representatives and individuals within the media itself, the areas that they would like to see improved. I must add that on one of the evening programs, it was brought out very clearly on UNCUT that freedom of the press needs to be directly addressed within the constitution. And so, we knew that there was a burning issue that the media wanted to be able to express and so this morning, that was done."
Darrell Bradley, Attorney
"So the Constitution doesn't mention the word media or press. If you look at the Constitution of the United States, the human rights law in Canada, even common law cases in the United Kingdom, they mention an express right to media and press freedom and just dropping a reference like that in the Belize Constitution could go a long way to redressing any imbalance and to underscore the important role that the media plays as the fourth estate, as being the fourth guardian of the democracy."
"Because one of the things that I highlighted in the presentation is that the media's right to freedom of the press and the protections that should be given to the media is an overarching right. The role of the media safeguards other rights within our society."
"So there's a slew of things that we can do in the Constitution, even in terms of the preamble expressing a normative value in there that recognizes the important role of the media to advancing the democratic culture and the democratic principles in our society and expanding clause or section 12 of the Constitution that talks about free expression to include a specific right that is existing in many other countries that guarantee press freedom."
The consultations continue with various groups countrywide - even though the commissioners are doing it as a labor of love - we understand they haven't even received fuel reimbursements for the many meetings they have attended.
