During the last Senate Meeting, you heard UDP Senator Sheena Pitts sound the alarm on the 13th amendment. One of the things it seeks to do is to make it easier for the government to declare SOE's. But today Musa explained that this amendment dates back to the UDP administration. He also added that SOE's aren't unconstitutional, it is the manner in which they are used that can make them so. Here's how he put it.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"As you know, this is now going to be the 13th amendment to our Constitution, which obviously is a very limited amount of constitutional amendments that have been made since our independence. What we have to understand is that whenever you are making an amendment to the Constitution, whether for better, or in some cases some might consider it to be for worse, there is going to be criticism from various entities, especially the opposition. But if you ask me, and it reminds me of the old Belizean saying that fishermen never say their fish stink, because when you look at the state of emergency that came under scrutiny in the Supreme Court, that was a state of emergency that was called by the United Democratic Party. And so we are the ones now having to defend that. But then you see the opposition now coming out condemning the state of emergency, quite incredibly so, having is shifting their position and now I see the opposition criticizing this legislation. But what we have to understand is that this legislation is in large part, if not wholly a migration of an existing law. And so if you look to the 1993, passage of legislation in the Crime Control and Criminal Justice Act, it is the exact language that you see in there that is now being migrated into the Constitution. And so this is a law by the United Democratic Party. I don't think that they realize that this is their legislation. And so it is just giving it that extra protection, that extra protective cloak, by enshrining it in the Constitution, which would then make it less open to being attacked, constitutionally, because it now forms part of the Constitution."
"States of emergencies are constitutional. They are not by nature unconstitutional. They are provided for in the Constitution. It is the application, or rather misapplication of the case of emergencies that make them unconstitutional or not. So you have to look at each state of emergency, whether or not, the rights of the detainees were respected. And so in this case, you have the very same detention of 2020 under the former administration that came under scrutiny. Two different judges came to two different conclusions. That matter, obviously will have to be going through the courts, up until the CCJ to get that final determination. But in the meantime, government has a responsibility. And so we have to be very decisive."
The proposed 13th amendment still has to go to public consultations.
