Gov’t Pushes Back Against 13th Amendment Criticism Amid Consultations

Government representatives are making media rounds to clear up what they coin as ‘misinformation’ and ‘misleading’ comments regarding the 13^th Constitutional Amendment.  The public consultations are slated to continue this week, but according to Attorney General Anthony Sylvestre, it is crucial that the misgivings be cleared up as the consultations continue.  As several persons out of the legal fraternity have been lobbying against the amendment and indicating that it is an assault on the basic fundamental rights, the government has pushed back on that narrative.  Minister of Home Affairs, Kareem Musa, noted that the State of Emergencies and the declaration of special areas have been on the law books since 1994.  He noted that the introduction of these legislations came in the Crime Control and Criminal Justice Act. 

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs: “In 1994, crime, you could see where crime was evolving to a point where there was gang warfare building up with the Crips and Bloods coming out of Los Angeles in the 1980s and that growing in the 90s and no doubt ballooning to where we are in 2025. And so the 1994 enactment by the then administration for the designation of special areas was created to address this very issue which is the situation where you have an escalation or an uptick in gang violence. What we’re doing is taking the very same law from 1984 and putting it in our Constitution to give it that  extra layer, that extra cloak of protection against all other rights and privileges that are contained in the Constitution.”

Another area that Minister Musa felt the need to rectify was the sentiment that Belize is using a blueprint from El Salvador when it comes to crime fighting strategies.  He noted that this amendment will not give the police any more power than it already has, nor would it infringe upon the constitutional rights of citizens.

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs: “Consultation which is a very important process that we hear from the public the concerns. Unfortunately, as you’re  rightly pointing out there is a lot of misinformation happening because I’ve even heard this law, this 13th Amendment being referred to as the Bukele or Salvador legislation, which in fact it is not. This is a law that has been in place since 1994. It will have the very same provisions as a state of emergency. This very same effect. It is just that we are now saying this particular designation of special area is a crime fighting measure which is not necessarily fleshed out in the 1981 Constitution because we didn’t have gang violence back then. Like you’re saying, Rene, there’s a lot of fear mongering that there’s going to be a greater deprivation of rights than an SOE. Absolutely not. We are not going into a Bukele state whatsoever. It is still the one month period or even less because now we are putting in there a provision that it’s not the minister that will decide a state of emergency but an entire body, the National Security Council that will decide that we will have a state of emergency based on the state of affairs as reported by the Belize Police Department. So the threat assessment coming out of the police department will say to the National Security Council, please consider right now a state of emergency, intelligence is suggesting to us that there will be a great spike in crime. We believe it’s necessary to call a state of emergency. That will not be left up on the minister or the prime minister anymore. That will be an entire body. And it could even decide we won’t do it for a month we’ll just do it for two weeks. And if it is that they decide to do so for a month, as in the current state of emergency, if you want to extend you still have to go to Parliament and you will still have to get two-thirds majority in order to extend it for a month more or two months more or what have you. And so the very same provisions as a state of emergency are now being implemented in the designation of special areas. Like I said, for a law that was already there in 1994, we’re just giving it that protection now in the Constitution.”