The long legal odyssey of the Maya customary land rights case has concluded in the courts today. Ten years after the CCJ upheld the Supreme Court judgment establishing customary Maya land rights. That court witnessed its final compliance hearing. It culminated with a draft bill proposal presented by the government's side. This bill will now be dissected by a review panel before making its way to the House of Representatives, as they're aiming for next summer.
But even that seems like a stretch, according to government attorney Andrew Marshallek. He told us more about today's proceedings.
Andrew Marshelleck, Attorney
"Well, where we are is that, the court was that, as you know, for the last ten years, conducting supervisory hearings, compliance hearings with the consent order when the court supervises the steps being taken to implement the order. Well, today was the last hearing in exercise of that super supervisory jurisdiction. The object of the consent order and the whole exercise was to craft and produce legislation, draft legislation which recognizes and protects Maya customary land tenure in Belize. A draft of that legislation has been prepared, produced. And at that point, the court indicated that that would be its last compliance hearing. So today was the last compliance hearing."
Reporter
"Now what happens next? Do you expect that this process of getting it to tabling at the National Assembly is still going to be extended?"
Andrew Marshelleck, Attorney
"There's an agreed schedule that was presented. What happens next is that the draft goes to a review panel. The review panel is supposed to comprise two members appointed by the government, two members by the appellants. And then that panel generates a report on the draft for presentation to the cabinet subcommittee and then to cabinet to review and approve any revisions. Improvements are made and then eventually it's presented, hopefully presented to the House for consideration."
Reporter
"What is the deadline for presentation?"
Andrew Marshelleck, Attorney
"There is no deadline. There's a schedule. There's an anticipation. If everything goes right, when it will be. And that takes us in to June 2026."
So what's in the draft bill? He explained the hybrid approach they're proposing.
Andrew Marshelleck, Attorney
"The draft bill adopts the hybrid approach to sharing land and recognizing Maya customary land tenure in southern Belize. It recognizes automatically a core space for each of 41 villages in the south, and that core space, the interest is automatically recognized in it. That means that land, once recognized, can never be bought or sold again and will be available to those villages in perpetuity. It also allows for each village to apply for even more land, but the additional lands that you apply for, you will have to show that you have used and occupied it for 30 years in order to to gain title to it, title to the interest in it. So we call it a hybrid approach because it allows for automatic registration up to a certain limit. And that limit has been measured by reference to five acres per person. It's not that every person gets five acres. It's a total space that belongs to the whole of the village. So a village of a population of a thousand people would automatically be entitled to 5000 acres. You can't recognize the interest in any less than that. It can only be more than that. And then it's more than that to the extent that you can show you're actually using lands outside that, for that period of time. And that's a scheme that's been adopted and presented. Now the details of that can be fleshed out any of a number of ways, and I expect that process to start now, with a view to see how you could make it better. The idea is to find the best way possible of sharing this finite space among Belizean people, Belizean brothers and sisters."
The panel consists of Dr Louis Zabaneh and Dr Osmond Martinez, representing the government, and Steven Anaya and Moira Gracey, representing the Maya Leaders Alliance.
