BELMOPAN, Belize, Nov 15, The People’s Constitution Commission (PCC) was; launched here on Monday night with Prime Minister John Briceño indicating that the commission will operate as an autonomous body, free of influence from the Belize government.
“The commission won’t determine the framework of the constitution. It is the people, so that everybody, every group, individual, be it a political party, religious, social, whatever it is, will be able to present their views, and when you present the views together, you extract what is workable and can be fashioned into a constitution that truly reflects the will of the people,” Briceño said.
Government 2020 introduced the Ministry of Public Service, Constitutional and Political Reform, and Religious Affairs with the intent of carrying out an extensive revision of the Constitution of Belize.
The PCC, which is chaired by former Belmopan mayor, Anthony Chanona, has been given 18 months to consult with Belizeans across the country on the necessary reforms and is expected to present its findings to the government in a final report, at which point those recommended changes will be taken to a referendum.
Constitutional Reform Minister Henry Charles Usher said rewriting the supreme law of the land is no task that should be taken lightly.
“It can only be done at the right time and under the right circumstances. The mandate can only come from the people, and the people must be at the center of the process. Today, we believe that as the government that the time for a people’s constitution has come,” Usher told the launch of the PCC.
“In this our 42nd year of independence, the Belizean people are taking a hard look at the systems and structures of governance, thinking about new ways to solve problems, graduating from representative government to participatory government. They want to accelerate and hopefully complete the process of decolonization.”
Usher said that in April 1981, neither the Premier of Belize nor any member of the Opposition was present in London at the constitutional conference which finalized the Belize Constitution.
“The country was deeply divided, and a state of emergency was in effect. Belizeans had no real say in making the constitution other than hastily held and poorly attended town meetings where the majority of the time was spent deciding on national symbols.
“Very little information was presented to the people, and as historian Ashad Shoman recently said in a newspaper article, the consultation was just a formality, as people were never given the opportunity to change the colonial framework.”
Usher said that since then, there have been many amendments to the constitution, incremental reform, expanding rights, and curtailing government abuse, “but as a people, we have been limited in our efforts to expand substantive freedoms and create the conditions for genuine and sustainable development.”
Prime Minister Briceño, speaking to reporters after the launch of the PCC, said that the next step is for the commission to come up with a work plan.
“I think they are already working on that, but now that they are officially given the oath of office now, it is for them to start to work. We have to make sure that we set certain guidelines and timelines. As the chairman announce, we are giving them eighteen months.
“If you do not set a timeline, you could spend the next five years talking and commenting and arguing, so we are saying that within eighteen months of extensive consultations, they can come up with something concrete they can put into a form that can be given to me as the Prime Minister, to have further discussions with the legislator and for it to go to referendum.”
Briceño said he is “quite excited about what is going to happen in the future and what shape or form we are going to take if we are going to stay with the legacy of colonialism or we are going to get rid of it that is for the people to decide.
“What is important is for people to participate and to find how we can deepen the number of democracies where we can have more democracy and not less. Where people can truly believe that they are a part of the process, that they can be listened to, and that government can understand that when they are elected, that is not when it ends. That is when the real work starts.”
The last time a constitutional reform exercise took place was in 1999 by the Constitution Reform Commission.
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