Is the 9th Amendment the will of the people?
Now back to the proposed ninth amendment. On Open your Eyes this morning, Hubert Elrington questioned the wisdom of his younger brother, Sedi, the current Foreign Minister whose defense of the proposed ninth amendment is that supremacy is in the hands of the people. Precisely, that the parliament has unlimited power to change the laws and that if people don’t agree they can vote them out every five years. But Hubert says that the question on the amendment is: is it the will of the people?
Hubert Elrington, Attorney
Hubert Elrington
“My younger brother, who I have always had the duty as an older brother of correcting and putting on the straight and narrow, he was a former attorney general, a former judge of the Supreme Court. He is a senior counsel, he is the foreign minister. He was leader of government business so they sent [him] and they have sent the new solicitor general. We have not had enough time to weigh her as yet, but she did support him very well last night. But of course, they were wrong and they were badly wrong. They missed the point completely. All this fanfare, all this wonderful setting, to come before the Belizean public and the world missing the point completely because the point that should have been raised was not raised. There are two issues; the first thing that you have to understand: the constitutional question is not a legal question. The constitutional question is: is this the will of the people of Belize? That is the constitutional question. How do you find out the will of the people of Belize? Go and ask them. Is it constitutional to ask them? 69 (5) provides that when you want to do anything with the constitution, you have to introduce the bill and then you have to have a ninety day period. This is the ninety day period. What is the purpose of the ninety day period is for the government to go out there and find out what the hell is the will of the Belizean people. If a referendum says no, if consultation says no then you go ahead and use your super majority, it is for the court to strike it down because the court has to ascertain whether there was consolation and whether what was the will of the people that those consultation produced. So once we use that procedure, the importance of section sixty-nine falls away and the convention that it is the will of the people comes to the fore and that is what they missed completely last night.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wilfred “Sedi” Elrington, will be our guest on Open Your Eyes this Wednesday morning.
Because of political intimidation, people may not show up at consultation sessions, therefore, to truely know the WILL OF THE BELIZEAN PEOPLE, let Mr. Barrow put it to a REFERENDUM. Let the people express their wishes through a referendum. We will accept nothing short of a REFERENDUM. Let see if he is truely a DEMOCRATE as he claims he is.
All due respect Hubert and I am not saying that Sedi is right but do you have to handle him like that especially in a forum such as this? being your younger brother don’t mean that you are always on the leading edge when it comes to knowledge on a particular subject sounds a bit egotistic to me or should I say sounds like you are taking lessons from Barrow, amazing what politics can do to families. Remember, My Legacy B4 My People.
WE WANT A REFERENDUM
Barrow will never take anything to referendum…see how he has been playing around with the people against oil drilling. I voted for the UDP because i wanted a change, I voted for the UDP because they said that were not like the PUP, I voted for the UDP because of the many campaign promises BUT it seems that I MAY HAVE MADE A MISTAKE. Mr Barrow a leader listens to his people, please start doing that
When oscar965 pleads to Barrow to start listening, I imagine Barrow standing high on a huge rock flapping like a rooster singing: Cock-a-doodle-do- I-offer-no-apology-to-you-brain-less-people-for-I-am the rooster.