Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, has come un­der scruti­ny in Be­lize, for his re­cent con­duct in a case seek­ing to stop that coun­try’s up­com­ing elec­tions over the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of its elec­toral bound­aries.

The is­sue arose last Wednes­day when Be­lize High Court Judge Tawan­da Hon­do­ra was called up­on to de­cide on in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tions sought by Ram­lo­gan’s clients Je­re­my En­riquez, Rudolph No­rales and Jes­si­ca Tul­cey.

The trio first sought an in­junc­tion last Mon­day as they were un­hap­py with the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s re­sponse to their re­quest that Be­lize Prime Min­is­ter John Briceño give them ad­vance no­tice of his de­ci­sion to ad­vise the Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al on the dis­solv­ing the coun­try’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly to call a gen­er­al elec­tion.

Two fur­ther amend­ed ap­pli­ca­tions were made af­ter Briceño an­nounced the de­ci­sion days lat­er and set March 12 for the elec­tion. In de­cid­ing the ap­pli­ca­tions, Jus­tice Hon­do­ra took is­sue with two af­fi­davits pur­port­ed­ly sworn by En­riquez in sup­port of the ap­pli­ca­tions. He not­ed that it ap­peared En­riquez’s sig­na­ture and that of the High Court Com­mis­sion­er, who pur­port­ed­ly wit­nessed his de­po­si­tion, were dig­i­tal­ly added to the court doc­u­ments.

Jus­tice Hon­do­ra said: “There is more than a whiff that some­one was giv­en dig­i­tal copies of the de­po­nent’s and the com­mis­sion­er’s sig­na­tures and in­sert­ed those in the af­fi­davit said to be that of Mr En­riquez and the oth­er doc­u­ments used in this mat­ter. If that be the case, it rais­es nu­mer­ous ques­tions of who did that, and un­der what au­thor­i­ty did they do so, and why did they con­sid­er it nec­es­sary and ap­pro­pri­ate to use dig­i­tal tem­plates.”

Jus­tice Hon­do­ra not­ed that Ram­lo­gan par­tic­i­pat­ed in the hear­ing be­fore him via video con­fer­enc­ing as he was not in Be­lize, and En­riquez re­ferred to a law firm in Be­lize City in his fil­ings. He point­ed out that Ram­lo­gan did not re­fer to the law firm when he an­nounced who was rep­re­sent­ing the trio at the hear­ing.

Based on the anom­alies found, which he de­scribed as in­ex­plic­a­ble, Jus­tice Hon­do­ra de­cid­ed to ig­nore the af­fi­davits and con­se­quent­ly dis­miss the ap­pli­ca­tions.

“Con­se­quent­ly, I dis­miss the ap­pli­ca­tion for in­ter­im re­lief on the grounds that it is in­ad­e­quate­ly plead­ed and is not sup­port­ed by any ad­mis­si­ble and co­her­ent ev­i­dence that would sus­tain a claim for in­ter­im re­lief on the stat­ed grounds,” Jus­tice Hon­do­ra said.

De­spite the lack of ev­i­dence, Jus­tice Hon­do­ra still con­sid­ered the grounds raised by Ram­lo­gan on the trio’s be­half. He re­ject­ed their claims that the Be­lize AG con­ced­ed the coun­try’s elec­toral bound­aries were un­con­sti­tu­tion­al in an­oth­er case de­cid­ed sev­er­al years ago. He found that the al­leged con­ces­sion did not oc­cur.

While he not­ed there was broad con­sen­sus across the po­lit­i­cal di­vide that the bound­aries, set in 2004, need to be up­dat­ed, he ruled the trio had not raised a case that had a good prospect of suc­cess at an even­tu­al tri­al. As part of his de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Hon­do­ra or­dered Ram­lo­gan to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on how the af­fi­davits sub­mit­ted in the case were pre­pared be­fore fil­ing, in­clud­ing an ex­pla­na­tion for the pur­port­ed use of tem­plate dig­i­tal sig­na­tures and the Be­lize law firm in­volve­ment.

Fol­low­ing the out­come of the case, there were re­ports in Be­lize al­leg­ing that dur­ing the hear­ing, Ram­lo­gan ques­tioned whether Jus­tice Hon­do­ra had de­cid­ed on the ap­pli­ca­tions be­fore of­fi­cial­ly an­nounc­ing his rul­ing. The re­ports said the al­le­ga­tion stemmed from the judge’s mi­cro­phone be­ing left on dur­ing a break in pro­ceed­ings. They stat­ed that the judge de­nied mak­ing the state­ments at­trib­uted to him and the case pro­ceed­ed.

How­ev­er, the pur­port­ed ex­change was not fea­tured in the judge’s writ­ten de­ci­sion. In a record­ed state­ment that was sub­se­quent­ly cir­cu­lat­ed, Ea­mon Courte­nay SC, who rep­re­sent­ed the Be­lize AG, di­rect­ly took is­sue with Ram­lo­gan’s con­duct.

Courte­nay is cur­rent­ly a gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and served as the coun­try’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs from 2006- 2007 and 2020-2023.

“I be­lieve, in my many years of prac­tice, I have nev­er seen a prac­ti­tion­er be­have so dis­re­spect­ful­ly, dis­grace­ful­ly, and so in­con­sis­tent with the tra­di­tions of the bar,” Courte­nay said.

“It was most re­gret­table and I can­not be­lieve that a se­nior coun­sel be­lieves he can come from Trinidad and To­ba­go and be­have that way in our courts,” he added.

He said he awaits what hap­pens based on the dis­clo­sure or­der made by Jus­tice Hon­do­ra about Ram­lo­gan.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ram­lo­gan de­nied any wrong­do­ing. He said Jus­tice Hon­do­ra’s de­ci­sion had al­ready been ap­pealed, with his clients seek­ing an ur­gent hear­ing from the Be­lize Court of Ap­peal.

In a me­dia re­lease late yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, En­riquez ac­cept­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the is­sues with his af­fi­davits.

“I take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sign­ing and com­mis­sion­ing my af­fi­davits, which I ex­e­cut­ed dig­i­tal­ly to en­sure their swift sub­mis­sion in light of the ur­gency of this mat­ter. The le­git­i­ma­cy of my ac­tions re­mains be­yond ques­tion,” he said.

En­riquez al­so de­fend Ram­lo­gan’s con­duct.

“His com­mit­ment to up­hold­ing the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy and jus­tice de­serves recog­ni­tion rather than be­ing over­shad­owed by po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed at­tacks on his char­ac­ter,” he added.