High Court Injunction Filed to Block Elections Over Lack of Redistricting

Jerry Enriquez and his legal team filed an emergency request for an injunction in the High Court today, hoping to block the 2025 elections and force the government to hold the redistricting exercise. With the election announcement made today, Enrique and his co-claimants, Rudolph and Jessica Tulcey were hoping to be one step ahead by filing the request for the injunction last night, but due to some problems with the High Court’s digital portal, they had to physically submit over 400 pages. Enriquez says that he now awaits the court’s response. Additionally, he noted that the government’s refusal to hold the redistricting exercise before elections is something the public should be paying attention to. 

Jerry Enriquez, Claimant: “It’s disappointing, but at the same time it shows the country, the entrenched system that we have, very deeply entrenched system. And not only that it is entrenched, but that there is strong resistance and insistence to having the status quo remain. We did have that expectation for decency and respect by the government, especially that we sent the pre-action letter to them to indicate. We also sent to the Governor General to say, listen, can you give us a little bit of time before any, so that we can file our injunction? We did not get that response from the Governor General nor the Prime Minister and then they went ahead in a sort of, kind of an ambush to get the process done, to call elections without the redistricting. But I’m still hopeful that the judges are reviewing the situation and we’ll see what happens from there.”

While Enriquez believes the government did have ample time, the Briceno Administration has stated for weeks that it’s simply too late. Last month, Prime Minister John Briceno said that while the government hoped to carry out the redistricting exercise, it was impossible before the general elections. Enriquez believes the PM’s comments prove the government intentionally pushing the issue aside. Yesterday, senior Minister Francis Fonseca, who has served as the Attorney General, denied the claim and stated that the government simply didn’t have enough time. 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education: “We’ve hired attorneys to look at that matter for us, so I’ll leave that to them. They can provide legal counsel and advice to the government on that issue. What I can say is that the government, as you all know, has committed to ensuring that we do carry out redistricting. We were hoping that it could have been done in this first term. Unfortunately, we were not able to accomplish that. As you all know as well, we have embarked on an important constitutional reform process. We think that will be important as well. as a part of this entire process so that Belizeans can look at the entire governance structure for our country and determine what way we want to move forward. So I think having the tool once we get the final report on the constitutional reform from the Commission, the PCC, we can then tie that into the work of the Elections and Boundaries Commission and hopefully then we can come up with a model that works best for Belize.”

The Briceno Administration has pledged to carry out the exercise if elected to office again.