A telephone interview with Prime Minister Dean Barrow. This interview was conducted by Patrick E.

Jones shortly after the Belize Court of Appeal handed down its judgment that the government takeover of Belize Telemdia Limited (BTL) was unconstitutional.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow Actually I am disappointed but this is the system, were a democracy; we respect the courts. We won down below, they won in the court of appeal. I will now look at the judgement carefully and discuss the matter with Cabinet consult as widely as I can and determine where we go from here. Patrick Jones: Does this mean then that you have to hand the company back over to Lord Michael Ashcroft. Prime Minister Dean Barrow Yes indeed. In terms of the decision of the court, we are looking at whether we are likely to get a stay on that decision, that can only come from the CCJ and in order to go to the CCJ I believe we need the permission from the Court of Appeal here and so that will take a while and in the meanwhile certainly respecting the decision of the Court of Appeal means handing back the company. Its unsettling in that regard in the sense that if we do get to go to the CCJ and we do get a stay then they will have to hand it back, and Lord thats a horrible state of uncertainty but as of now the judgement in the court of appeal is clear and it stands unless and until, their order stands unless we get some stay of that order from the CCJ so I have given instruction today that if the appellants go into the company on St. Thomas Street to take over they must be allowed to do that. Patrick Jones: How big a setback is this for your government? Prime Minister Dean Barrow It is a legal setback for sure but as I say it is not necessarily over yet. Politically I dont know, the truth is that we have no regrets in having done what we did. We certainly are in any event rid of the accommodation agreement which was the principal reason for the takeover just before we went to the House in an effort to stave off what we were doing the Ashcroft group had conceded that the accommodation agreement is invalid, that it cannot be relied on so from that point of view it was worth the fight. Again in terms of standing up for national dignity and national sovereignty it was worth the fight, if I had to do it all over again I would do it in exactly the same way except the law would have to be drafted a little more carefully. We believe that ultimately while we have to respect the decision of the courts Belizeans will applaud this Government for having had the courage to do what it did, for having had the courage to stand up to this billionaire and to make absolutely plain that we would not be robbed of our dignity, we would not tolerate insults to our sovereignty because as I said ultimately we are very much a democracy what the courts say must be respected. If the court now say perhaps you went too far then we have to deal with that. Nobody can question that what we did, we did for the proper motives and I am saying that even if the Court of Appeal decision stands in terms now of the PUC being able to regulate Telemedia which

was what it couldnt do under the Accommodation agreement, that sort of thing will have to mean better service and cheaper rates to the consumers. So, no regrets, I regret of course that we lost but in terms of doing what we did absolutely no regrets, I made the point to you that I would do it all over in similar circumstances. Patrick Jones: Prime Minister are you worried about the precedent set by this case so far as the BEL expropriation is concerned. Prime Minister Dean Barrow From what I have seen in terms of a quick perusal of the judgement, one of the grounds for striking down the acquisition was that the public purpose that the fact did not justify the public service, that cannot be the case with BEL. The facts obviously more than justifies the public purposes that we put in the law for the making of the order of expropriation. The judgement also though looks at the act that empowers the making of the acquisition order and in the case of Telemedia that act itself has been found to unconstitutional. A couple of the bases on which the act was found to unconstitutional we fixed because we knew that these were arguments that had come up with Telemedia so we fixed those when we did the BEL legislation. If there is any regard that the court has found the Telemedia Act wanting and we look and we see we left that out, we are also guilty of perhaps the same mistake in the BEL legislation I will simply go back to the House and correct that because the BEL situation is completely different. With Ashcroft this was a fight over the accommodation agreement, this was a fight over dignity; in terms of BEL this was a matter of having absolutely no choice to avoid plunging this country into blackout so whatever I need to do to fix the BEL law if after we examine this judgement we conclude that the BEL law might be wanting, I will do it. In terms of Telemedia I will never say to you I will go back to the House and try to pass another act to acquire Telemedia all over again, I think that is off the table although I must first consult with Cabinet. But certainly whatever may be needed by virtue of this decision to fix the BEL acquisition law will be done, there can be no and will be no turning back on BEL.

This transcript was done by Ava Diaz-Sosa, the News Director at Love News.