BELMOPAN, Belize, Sept 4, CMC-The Court of Appeal of Belize has awarded BDZ$15,000 (One Belize dollar=US$0.49 cent) in compensation and BDZ$7,000 in vindicatory damages to each of five detainees after ruling that two states of emergency (SoE)imposed on Southside Belize City in 2020 were unconstitutional.
In a landmark ruling the Court of Appeal also declared that the both the emergency proclamations and the mass detentions carried out under them unconstitutional.
Acting Justice of Appeal E. Andrew Marshalleck said that using SoEs to tamp down gang violence, acts merely as “bandages rather than cures” while threatening the fundamental rights guaranteed by Section 3 of the Belize Constitution.
The Court found that the government failed to provide enough evidence to justify the extraordinary measures, noting that ordinary crime and violence, even when severe, cannot automatically justify a state of emergency.
It said that the government must show a threat so widespread that authorities cannot address it through ordinary criminal laws.
Justice Marshalleck, delivering the ruling on behalf of the other judges said that the Court found no such evidence in the cases before it and that the arrests and detentions carried out under the emergency declarations violated the detainees’ constitutional rights.
The Court said that the authorities gave detainees vague reasons, including the phrase “gang activities,” and failed to appoint an independent tribunal to review their detention.
Legal observers say the consolidated judgment covering Civil Appeals 18, 19, and 20 of 2025, delivers a powerful rebuke to the state’s reliance on emergency powers as routine crime-fighting tools.
The legal battle stemmed from the SoE proclamations issued in March and July 2020 and while the government argued that spikes in gang violence justified extraordinary powers, the Appellate Court ruled that standard crime spates do not meet the constitutional threshold.
The Court noted that Section 18 of the Constitution requires concrete evidence of a specific triggering event of such scale and nature that it threatens public safety beyond the reach of ordinary criminal law enforcement.
”The proclamation of a state of emergency in Belize is not meant to deal with ordinary criminal activities concomitant with social or economic dysfunction,” Justice Marshalleck said declaring both the initial proclamations and their parliamentary extensions invalid.
The ruling also exposed severe constitutional breaches in how alleged gang members were rounded up and held at the Belize Central Prison with the Appellate court highlighting several critical failures by state authorities including blanket detention orders citing vague two-word reasons such as “gang activities” without providing necessary factual particulars.
In upholding and expanding on earlier lower-court interventions, the Court of Appeal awarded damages for arbitrary deprivation of liberty and aggravated constitutional breaches of BDZ$15,000 in compensation and BDZ$7,000 in vindicatory damage to each of five detainees, namely Shane Harris, Laquan Shemar Flowers, Dejon Joseph, Dimetris Gordon and Nukie Barrow.
CMC//ag/ir/2026