Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The former Prime Minister of Belize, Said Musa, has decided that he must return to court out of retirement to represent Samuel Bruce in a “Landmark case” against the Benque Viejo Community and the Catholic Diocese.
Samuel Bruce became the owner of nine acres of land on the Arenal Road in Benque Viejo del Carmen in 1991. Since then
not much has been done with the land. The Government of Belize has been searching for adequate land to build a Mount Carmel Public School.
According to section three of the Land Acquisition (Public Purpose) Act: “Whenever the Minister considers that any land should be acquired for a public purpose, he may cause a declaration to that effect to be made in the manner provided by this section and the declaration shall be a prima facie evidence that the land to which it relates is required for a public purpose.”
On January 10, 2009, the Ministry of Natural Resources published the first declaration of land acquisition in the Gazette which revealed government’s intent to acquire 4.4 acres of Bruce’s land for the purpose of building a public school. On January 27, Bruce met with representatives from the Ministry of Natural Resources to discuss the land acquisition with him as well as compensation for the property. On March 11, the Ministry posted a notice of Acquisition to Bruce and asked him to respond and state his claim of compensation so that a mutually agreed price may be determined. On April 3, a notice of Acquisition was personally delivered to Bruce by the Commissioner of Lands himself and he was asked to verbally respond to the Notice and state his claim for compensation. He stated that he will sue the Government. On November 30, Bruce’s attorney served their Notice of Application for Judicial Review regarding the compulsory acquisition.
According to section three of the Land Acquisition (Public Purpose) Act: “Any person claiming interest in or right over the land shall have the right of access to the courts for the purpose of determining whether the acquisition was duly carried out for a public purpose in accordance with this Act.” For Bruce to convince the court that building a public primary school is not a public purpose he needed more than an attorney. He needed someone who can lie and make people believe him. He needed a real liar. In Bruce’s words, “Everyone I spoke to said I couldn’t find anyone more qualified to do it, more an expert… So that’s why I spoke to Mr. Musa and he agreed to come out of retirement.” Many were shocked when Bruce said those words- to find out that Musa had stopped being a liar.
Musa had two main arguments as to why the process of acquisition should be stopped. He said that the school had already been given land and that they own eight lots since 2002. That issue was brought up when the parties went to court and on June 22, 2009, the CEO in the ministry of Lands informed Musa that the eight lots referred to is too small to accommodate a new primary school and that the Ministry understood that those lots were already returned to their original owners. Musa then claims that the action was not done “in good faith”. He argues that since the school will be managed by the Catholic Diocese it is not a public purpose. Attorney for GOB, Deputy Solicitor General Pricilla Banner, reminded the court of the church/state partnership that has contributed significantly to the development of education in Belize. Mount Carmel is a grant-in-aid school which means that the majority of the funds required to operate the school, which includes 100% of teachers’ salary, is provided by the Ministry of Education.
Submissions continued throughout this afternoon and the proceedings are scheduled to be completed shortly. It is being heard by the Chief Justice of Belize Abdullah Conteh.
