By Dylan Vernon, TIME COME #16, 20 November 2024.
On 12 November 2024, the House of Representatives passed a Bill to extend the tenure of the People’s Constitution Commission (PCC) in Belize by six months. Unlike the first six-month extension in May 2024, which was contemplated under the PCC Act, this second extension required an amendment to the Act by the National Assembly. Senate approval is highly likely. Launched in November 2022, the PCC reached its two-year mark in mid-November 2024, and it will now have until May 2025 to complete its mandate to recommend a new or reformed constitution for Belize. Officially requested by the PCC, this latest extension begs basic questions: Why the need for an extension? What has been accomplished so far? And how will the PCC really use this additional time?
Why an Extension Needed?
Because public information on the recent work of the Commission has been sparse, such questions can only be fully addressed by the PCC itself. Indeed, the people of Belize deserve a full update on the current status of the process and on the plan going forward. Having been a keen observer of PCC activities and having attended a recent (internal) update session hosted by one of the institutions represented on the PCC, I will share a few emerging insights on the PCC process thus far. Is this rare opportunity to remake Belize’s Constitution being fully embraced?
As recently as October 2024, the PCC chairperson, Anthony Chanona stated that the PCC would meet its November 2024 deadline (of its first extension) to conclude its work. In a late October 2024 press interview, the Minister of Political and Constitutional Reform, the Honourable Henry Charles Usher, shared this same assessment. This is why the request for an extension by the PCC appeared to be quite sudden.
When questioned by the Opposition in the House on 12 November 2024 and, thereafter, by reporters on the reason for the extension, Minister Usher informed (likely based on the request from the PCC) that more time is needed to “have stakeholders respond to raw data, and then put together a final report.” The term ‘raw data’ is curious in that one would assume that the PCC should be reviewing and sharing much more than that at this two year point. And are these ‘stakeholders’ the public or just the constituencies of the commissioners? I will come back to this.
Such extensions for complicated constitutional reform processes are not necessarily a bad thing if the rationale is sound and if ineffective strategies are revised. Indeed, when the PCC was being initiated in 2022, a handful of persons argued for an initial period longer than two years, given the magnitude of the task and the educational deficit the PCC was facing. In this regard, the need for an extension is not at all surprising.
I say this also because my considered impression is that the PCC process has not all gone to plan and that there is the need for some course correction. To explore this impression, it is useful to recall what the PCC itself publicly promised about executing its mandate to recommend a new or reformed constitution for Belize, based on widespread consultations with Belizeans at home and abroad.
On the Status of the PCC Process?
When the PCC was launched two years ago, the PCC informed the Belizean people of the process it would use to carry out its mandate. In broad terms, the promised process was to include:
- Planning and orientation
- Public outreach and public education
- Public consultations
- PCC deliberations and the drafting of recommendations
- Further consultations based on draft recommendations
- Finalisation of a report and presentation of it to the Prime Minister for tabling in the National Assembly
According to the information shared by the PCC itself, the first two of these have been completed, albeit taking more time than planned – and with the understanding that education is ongoing. But, thereafter, things get more murky.
From what the PCC has stated to the media, the all-important public education phase did not begin until June 2023 and ended in February 2024 or shortly after. This amount of time is actually not that long given that the PCC was launched in a context of little popular demand for constitutional reform and of low levels of public awareness about constitutional matters. On the latter, an informal poll (2023) by the PCC suggested that an eye-popping 98% of respondents were not familiar with the Constitution.
More important than the length of time allotted for public education, is the quality of the education and its results. A full and independent assessment of these can only come after the PCC completes its mandate. However, from the public education sessions that I observed, it appears that the public education approach was more top-down lecturing to people and less in popular education format.
While the informational documents produced by the PCC are useful, popular and more user-friendly formats have been few. The PCC website boasts some impressive outreach numbers, which, if verified, deserve congratulations. But more information on the calculation of these numbers and their categorisation is needed for a sound assessment. For example, the website states ‘22,000+ persons consulted’. What exactly is meant by ‘consulted’? Is it that 22,000+ persons were reached in some way or form?
Has there been a Public Consultation Phase?
During the PCC’s education and outreach phase, the PCC informed that the consultation phase would come after a period dedicated to increasing public awareness on the Constitution and its reform. Participants in public education sessions were informed that the PCC would come back to them for consultations on specific reform areas. However, did the PCC ever officially launch a public consultation phase? If it did, I totally missed it.
While education and consultation are distinct, they do organically overlap in constitutional reform processes. Some of this has certainly happened with the PCC. For example, the PCC widely disseminated a survey instrument to solicit issues of concern about the Constitution. It also requested and received written proposals for reform. Yet, direct face-to-face public consultations, where people give feedback on emerging reform options, have not yet happened in a comprehensive and structured way. In short, based on the process that the PCC promised, there is confusion on the status of public consultations. Did the PCC’s plans here change due to time and other factors? Did the PCC go into deliberations and drafting recommendations before concluding public consultations? Are more public consultations planned with the time extension to May 2025? My own sense is that, thus far, public consultations have been shortchanged in a process that should be all about the people.
On PCC Deliberations and Reporting
In piecing together the PCC process timeline, it appears that the internal PCC deliberations on reviewing feedback and on drafting reform proposals began around May 2024. Along the way, the PCC has made public promises about the preparation and sharing of an interim report. One was to have been shared by October 2023 but then the timetable kept getting pushed back. As recently as August 2024, the PCC promised an interim report by October 2024. To date, no such report has been shared.
Ostensibly, an interim report would have included an update on all PCC activities and a listing of emerging reform options or areas emanating from the people’s input. Ostensibly, these emerging proposals and/or options would then have been used as the basis for additional public consultation activities to further inform the PCC in the preparation of its final report.
To state the obvious, the PCC has not delivered an interim report because it did not complete the work needed to effectively draft one. In the absence of one, since late October and early November 2024, a few PCC members have been sharing some emerging and disjointed sub-committee recommendations within their institutions. Some news media outlets have reported that an interim report is currently being reviewed by the PCC. However, the said document is titled a ‘draft final report’.
If the document is really a draft final report, did the PCC skip a couple usual steps in getting there? As I understand it, a draft final report should have gone through an interim phase and everything in it should have been reviewed, checked for overall synergy and approved by the PCC plenary. Did this happen? Perhaps, as the mid-November 2024 end of tenure of the PCC approached, corners were being cut to meet a deadline.
Worrying Signs on Next Steps
In an interview given to Channel 5 News on 5 November 2024, the chairman of the PCC expressed disappointment that the draft report was being circulated and informed that “this draft doesn’t accurately reflect the commission’s final product.” That is fair comment. Sharing working documents can create unnecessary confusion and distractions in constitutional reform processes. This is why I have refrained from commenting on any rumoured recommendations. I was waiting for an official interim report based on promises made.
However, in the same interview, the chairman went on to clarify that the report being currently prepared is, indeed, the final report — meaning that there will be no interim report at all. He further stated that no draft with recommendations will be presented to the public by the PCC because “The law is very clear. We present only to the prime minister of Belize. He gets a document.” While that is, indeed, the case for the final report of the PCC, the PCC has every latitude based on the PCC Act to share whatever it wants with the public before finalising its report — including draft recommendations.
Perhaps the most worrying comment made by the PCC chairman is that the PCC is “proposing in the draft of the final report to encourage the government of Belize to set up a secondary tier, a secondary process to take the document into the public space by a separate process and procedure to allow the people of Belize to see the contents of the report and it to debate it.” In other words, it appears that the PCC is planning to give back a critical part of its own mandate to the very government it received the mandate from. Que cosa!
Part of what the independent PCC is mandated to do under the PCC Act is just what the PCC seems to want to pass back to government: public debate and getting feedback. What goes to the National Assembly through the Prime Minister in a final report should be what the people prescribed during the process. Then, it is for the National Assembly to decide if a referendum is required and on what. If there is, indeed, a referendum, then clearly this will require comprehensive public education, campaigns and debate by all interested parties on the referendum question.
Can the PCC Ship be Righted?
I do hope that the PCC finds a way not to renege on any key aspects of its mandate and that this rare opportunity to remake Belize’s Constitution does not sputter out. It goes without saying, especially in light of the extension, that it would be wise for the PCC to host a public engagement at the earliest to update the nation on the status of executing its mandate and on its plans going forward.
Key questions for the PCC include: Has there been any course correction for the rest of the process? Is six months more enough? Is there a need to re-structure the report preparation process? Will there be further public consultations as promised? Will the final report include elements of what a new or reformed constitution would look like with all the recommendations included? If there is a referendum, what would the PCC recommend be put to the people?
I had assumed that the reason that the PCC has not requested more funds for the six-month extension is because it has savings for more public consultations and not because none are planned. Not going back to the people at all before finalising the report, even if limited to the big issues, will raise even more doubts about an already shaky process.
In the context of the prospect of an early general election, there may very well be political pressure to complete the final report before whenever that is. My own view is that the PCC should not rush its work based on artificial deadlines such as dates for general elections. Take the time that is needed. Relatedly, I advise the government against placing a referendum on constitutional reform on the same day as a general election. The issues of constitutional reforms will either get lost in the partisan carnival and/or be subjected to divisive partisan games.
In my past TIME COME pieces, I have shared warnings about PCC timing, about pre-empting the PCC process, and about my concerns on other aspects of the PCC process. I will not repeat these here except to share a paragraph from Rock Di Boat of 28 January 2024:
“For sure, the Act that established the PCC has flaws – including the absence of an independent secretariat, an end game that leaves too much to the discretion of the government and no legal commitment to a referendum. Yet, it also provides political space that can be seized and widened…People who look for limitations instead of thinking boldly will say that the PCC cannot itself present a new or revised constitution to government – because the Act does not say this specifically. Nonsense! This is exactly what the PCC needs to do.”
As Dr. Harold Young has contended, the seizing and the widening of that political space was to be best done by the civil society organisations on the PCC. The most important variable in the quality and content of the PCC final report is not the government or the PCC secretariat, but the quality of leadership of civil society representatives to be the voices of the people. Is there still a window for the righting of the listing PCC ship? The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so vamos a ver.
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