And apart from that, the UDP also sounded the alarm once again on the 13th amendment. Minister of Home Affairs Kareem Musa told us yesterday that public consultations will be held tomorrow at Swift Hall. UDP Senator Sheena Pitts encouraged the public - especially those in marginalized communities - to attend. She also laid out what this bill will look like and how it will mainly affect those in southside Belize City.
Sheena Pitts, UDP Senator
"The reason why we do not support the bill is because it has constitutional underpinnings that are intended to be undermined. The Constitution safeguards some of our civil liberties and rights, and what the 13th Amendment Bill is doing is allowing the government to use states of emergencies as a tool to fight crime."
"So instead of having a police department that has the capacity, the equipment, and the wherewithal to investigate and solve crime, what they will now do is use states of emergencies to say, oh, the area that we know of as ghost town, there is a shooting there, we think there will be retaliation or some uprising, I'll just shut the area down."
"In addition to that, they could, according to the bill, create a cordon, like cordon off the area, and prohibit movement into and out of. During any period of public emergency, the governor general has the authority to make new rules or laws, regulations, really not laws, and those rules or regulations, they do not need to conform with existing laws, and whatever is done during a state of emergency, whether it is illegal or invalid, because it is done during that period, and because the governor general will have the authority to make rules or regulations contrary to ordinary law, it would be deemed lawful."
"So citizens rarely would experience a deprivation of rights in addition to a complete breakdown of the rule of law, things like fairness, things like going through the proper procedure. If you're picked up during a period of public emergency, according to the bill, you go straight to the prison."
The consultations will be held from 10:00 in the morning to 4:00 in the evening.
