And yesterday we asked one of the former members of that Defence Attorneys Association turned Attorney General Anthony Sylvester about what his former colleagues now call the "foreignization of the nation's judiciary."
It started in a conversation about law students who will be recruited to work in an expanded legal aid apparatus. We asked him how high they can go:
Reporter:
"if I could ask about the churn of legal professionals, moving through the system or, ascending through the system. You know, we always have young attorneys coming back more and more, it seems, is there an attempt to engage them more in the public administration of justice? And in that light, is it a deterrent for some that we recently hired six magistrates and reports are that all six of them are foreign?"
Anthony Sylvestre
"As it relates to the issue relating to the employment of the recent magistrates, I would prefer not to refer to the magistrates or persons who are employed as "foreigners." And there's a specific reason, given our geopolitical and political realities, small states like Belize, which is the reason why, there was a creation of Caricom, within that framework, there's this there's this mechanism of free movement, and as well for employment for professionals. And so, what obtains is just the system working. Now, if a particular individual feels aggrieved by the decision of the commission to say, well, I sent you an application, but it wasn't considered or whatever. Then again, I would encourage that person or those individuals to work the system, challenge the system, take the matter to court, because the commission is amenable to judicial review."
Reporter:
"But then why should you have to operate - if you are a citizen in your own country, you submitted an application - why should you have to take the position of a second class citizen? Have to then go to the court to get a legal hearing against what you feel is discriminatory treatment"
Anthony Sylvestre
"Belize has an obligation as part of and a member state of Caricom. So you speak about discriminatory practices. If we were to, and if the government were to adopt a policy to say, well, we won't hire, or we only hire Belizeans, that automatically would lead to an action being in file against us in the original jurisdiction of the CCJ."
Reporter:
"Now but isn't one of the qualities of justice that it has to have some sense of, some local sensibility that a judge or a magistrate must be attuned with the mores and with the norms of a society for him or her to be an effective judge? If we continue to import our judges and magistrates, they have their own sensibility. It may be similar. We may have a shared historical, a shared history, but at the same time, they da noh frahn ya, and at the same time it denies justice that quality of intimate knowledge of a society's norms and mores."
Anthony Sylvestre
"So, I hear you, but I return to what I said earlier. So within the framework of Caricom, we as Belize, as a member of Caricom, we have shared historical past. And as a result of that, we have a shared, legal system. So for all these years, for 50 plus years that is how we've been operating. And we have always had non Belizeans and who have sat on the bench, and who presided over matters and, and we have done well as a country with respect to that. And so what I, I hear you, what I can say and what the evidence shows is that we have had a very thriving legal system. And Belize remains one of the jurisdictions in which some of the best jurisprudence emerge."
Reporter:
"You realize, though, that it sounds Orwellian and like doublespeak when you start to say these people are not foreigners. Right. But I understand they come from our same community or a same bloc, but they are foreign, like, these judges are foreign."
Anthony Sylvestre
"Well, again, so the proof right, is actually in the eating, what we have had, our judges who have lived up to the oath that they take who have discharged their judicial oath and they have rendered fair, impartial decisions and so that is what is required."
Sources in the judiciary say 5 Trinidadian Magistrates are coming along with 1 Sri Lankan.
According to the Association of Defense Attorneys quote, "a Belizean Magistrate recently applied for a vacant promotion and was turned down in favour of a foreign magistrate with less experience. The Belizean Magistrate has informed she will resign."