By: Omar Silva I Editor/ Publisher

National Perspectivebz.com

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City” Friday 18th July 2025

🟥 Editorial Response

The people gathered at Swift Hall to confront the 13th Amendment—and its consequences. But one voice was missing from the consultation: Dr. Louis Zabaneh, the Minister of Constitutional and Indigenous Affairs, the very individual entrusted with safeguarding the spirit and integrity of Belize’s Constitution.

His absence was not just symbolic—it was a signal. A signal that those with the greatest responsibility to defend constitutional rights are nowhere to be found when those rights are under threat.

Dr. Zabaneh said he had "pressing matters" in Punta Gorda, and that the consultation "did not hinder the opponents." But this defense rings hollow. When the Constitution is on the operating table, the surgeon does not skip the operation.

The 13th Amendment is not a minor policy tweak—it is a dangerous rewriting of constitutional protections that:

• Retroactively validates illegal detentions,
• Legalizes profiling of communities as “gang zones,”
• Strips the presumption of innocence,
• And centralizes unchecked power in the Executive branch.

Dr. Zabaneh’s calm posture belies the storm his government is unleashing. His vague platitudes about “gauging how the people feel” and “bringing down the temperature” are evasive, not leadership.

Let us be clear:

The people’s feelings are not up for measurement—they are demanding protection.

The 13th Amendment violates the letter and the spirit of the Constitution.

No Maya land meeting excuses silence in the face of constitutional dismemberment.

If this government can sit with landowners and corporations to “listen carefully,” then it must be held accountable for refusing to sit with the people when their most basic rights are on the line.

🔴 This is what constitutional bad faith looks like:

• Public consultations with pre-written conclusions.
• Cabinet members absent when scrutiny arises.
• A law that targets the poor while claiming to serve “public order.”

Zabaneh’s distance from the 13th Amendment might seem like political convenience. But history will record it as a betrayal of his ministerial duty—to act as guardian, not bystander, to the people’s rights.