CJ to GOB: hands off Maya lands
Friday, 19 October 2007
Mayan leaders Greg Choc and Cristina Coc share the good news with their supporters.
The Mayan communities in southern Belize are celebrating great victory today, having successfully convinced the Supreme Court that they are indeed constitutionally entitled to land rights they currently occupy.
Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh, in a bench mark ruling Thursday, agreed with the Maya leaders and villagers of both Santa Cruz and Conejo, stating that the Government of Belize was wrong in failing to recognise, protect and respect their land rights, which is rooted in traditional custom.
The Chief Justice, in his 67 page judgement, which took almost three hours to read, stated that “there is no evidence in any event, to warrant me to find that the Maya of southern Belize as the indigenous inhabitants, ceded their lands or suffered them to be taken as a spoil of conquest when the borders of British Honduras were extended south of the Sibun River in 1859, to include what is today the Toledo District.”
The Chief Justice’s ruling, which was witnessed by court room filled with Mayan people, who travelled from Toledo to hear the ruling, clapped in joy when Conteh finished reading his judgement.
The Maya community took the Government of Belize to court and asked it to declare that they do hold collective and individual rights to the land and resources that they have used and occupied in the past and that these rights constitute property as stipulated in section 3 and 17 of the Belize Constitution.
Chief Justice Conteh agreed with the Maya and stated that the evidence presented by their people was overwhelming.
The Government of Belize, he noted, failed to prove that the Maya rights to the land was forfeited when the government acquired territorial sovereignty over the area.
Nichola Cho, a government attorney attached to the Ministry of Natural Resources, argued the case for the Government of Belize.
Cho in her arguments before the court earlier this year, claimed that several factors had evolved during the pre-independence era of Belize which extinguished the Maya pre-existing rights and interest in the land after the assumption of the territorial sovereignty of Belize by the British.
But the Chief Justice explained that he was of the view that “regardless of when territorial sovereignty was established over Belize... historical fact did not by itself, ordinary, without more, extinguish pre-existing rights or to interest in land that the indigenous people enjoyed.”
Apart from agreeing with the Maya people, the Chief Justice also ordered the government to cease and abstain from any acts that may lead its agents or third parties to affect the Maya existence, values, use of enjoyment, unless such acts are done with their consent and in compliance of the Belize Constitution.
The Chief Justice ordered the government to determine, demarcate and provide official documentation of both Santa Cruz and Conejo’s title and rights in accordance with Maya customary law and practices.
The court has also ordered the government to abstain from issuing any lease or grants to lands or resources, registering any such interest in lands, issuing any regulations concerning land or resources and refrain from issuing any concessions for resources or exploitation of Maya land.
Last Updated ( Friday, 19 October 2007 )
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