Belize at the London Constitutional Conference: The People and the Belize Independence Constitution – Part III

By Dylan Vernon, (REAL STORY #3, 10 October 2023)

On Saturday 4th April 1981, a small Belizean government delegation boarded a flight at the Belize International Airport to begin a long journey to London to ‘negotiate’ Belize’s Independence Constitution with the British. This was just over one week after the National Assembly approved the Report of the Joint Select Committee on the White Paper on 27 March 1981. (See my Real Story #2 on this here). And it was only two days after Governor Hennessy declared a state of emergency to quell civil unrest over the Heads of Agreement. (This was the last failed pre-independence attempt to settle the Guatemala claim of Belize). However, the Belize Constitutional Conference proceeded as planned at Marlborough House from 6 to 14 April 1981.

Without a Full Team

In a cruel twist of political circumstances, the Father of the Nation, then Premier George Price, was not on that trans-Atlantic trip. In making the agonising decision not to go to London in the middle of the political crisis, Price became the only head of government in the Commonwealth Caribbean to be absent from his nation’s independence Constitutional Conference. (Governor Hennessy was also absent). Price appointed Senator and Deputy Premier C.L.B… Read the rest...

The People and the Belize Independence Constitution: Part II – The People Consulted?

By Dylan Vernon, (REAL STORY #2, 5 October 2023)

By 3 February 1981 when the Joint Select Committee (JSC) on the White Paper held is first (private) meeting, the People’s United Party (PUP) government already knew that it had just about two months before the Constitutional Conference in London to consult the people of Belize on the White Paper and prepare a report for the National Assembly. Otherwise, the tight schedule it had set for independence in 1981 would be in very serious jeopardy.

Pronto! Pronto!

Indeed, there was little time for consultations much less for education. In that first week of February, the PUP government put its still evolving plans to consult the people into high gear. Copies of the White Paper were sent to dozens of organisations and communities with a stated deadline for comments by 25 February 1981 – an eye-popping three-week turnaround! The JSC made public announcements on Radio Belize informing of district-level public sessions and how copies could be procured or read.

So it was that the JSC crammed nine public consultations on the White Paper into a rushed two-week period between 16 February and 2 March of that eventful year of independence. This meant, for example, that the people in the first session in Punta Gorda on 16 February had less than two weeks to review the document even if they got copies. … Read the rest...

The People and the Belize Independence Constitution: Part I – The Making of the White Paper

By Dylan Vernon, (REAL STORY#1, 2 October 2023)

This post is the first part of my four-part series on the Real Story of the making of the Independence Constitution of Belize and on the question of what role the people of Belize had in it. In this first part, I examine the making of the White Paper. Part II is in on the public consultations on it. In Part III I focus on the Constitutional Conference in London, and in Part IV I share conclusions. I advise that the parts be read in sequence.

 Divergent Opinions

By the time I chaired the Political Reform Commission in 1999, I was well aware of the divide in political opinion on to what extent, if any, the 1981 Constitution of Belize was ‘of the people’. In broad terms, there are two identifiable camps. A larger traditionalist camp holds that key Belizean nationalist leaders prepared the Constitution with considerable input from the Belizean people. This camp takes offence to any deviation from this narrative – often at the price of ignoring history. On the other side, a revisionist camp argues that the Constitution was inherited from imperialist Britain with only a few tweaks made by the local political elite, and that hurried consultations prevented the people from having any meaningful say.… Read the rest...

LAUNCH: Time Come – Put People Back in Democracy!

By Dylan Vernon (TIME COME #1-Launch Post, 29 September 2023, Belize City, Belize).

Like today, 29th September 1950 was also a Friday. It was a momentous day in the struggle of the people of Belize to create a new sovereign democratic state of Central America in the Caribbean region. The People’s Committee, which had led the people’s revolt against British colonialism since 31 December 1949, gave way to Belize’s first national people’s political party: the People’s United Party. With John Smith elected as Party Leader, Leigh Richardson as chairman, George Price as secretary and Philip Goldson as assistant secretary, all Belize’s key nationalist leaders were together that historic September day 73 years ago. The people were with them and they with the people.

A People’s Moment

From the thousands who flocked to public meetings and joined the new party, to the strong union support and to the popular and progressive calls for independence, freedom and justice, it is clear that, for a moment in their political history, Belizean women and men were united and at the center of making democracy. By 1954, the people won the victory of universal adult suffrage and the right to elect their own leaders under a new Constitution.… Read the rest...

Will Belize Get a People’s Constitution? Prospects and Challenges

By Dylan Vernon (PAST WORK #4, first published in IDEAS Voices in the Field on 31 October 2022)

Belize is embarking on its second constitutional review process since independence. While the review has cross-partisan support, preliminary criticisms about the composition of the People’s Constitution Commission, the body entrusted with the review, highlight the challenge of designing a membership approach that is transparent and representative yet manageable. Nevertheless, for the reform process and a potential referendum to succeed, the Commission must see itself not as a body of elite constitutional drafters but as a facilitator of a truly consultative process to ascertain and represent the aspirations of the Belizean people – writes Dr. Dylan Vernon

 Introduction

With the passage of the People’s Constitution Commission Act in October 2022, Belize became the latest Commonwealth Caribbean state to commit to a comprehensive process of constitutional reform. This is Belize’s second such effort since its independence from the United Kingdom in 1981. Two decades after the 1999 Political Reform Commission’s (PRC) final report and 41 years after independence, Belizeans have another opportunity to forge a totally new rule book for the state. The People’s Constitution Commission (PCC) is mandated to “draft and guide the process of promulgating a new Constitution for Belize or amendments to the Belize Constitution.”… Read the rest...