_{Jeremy Enriquez}

BELIZE CITY, Tuesday, July 23, 2025

As we reported in early May, after having filed a formal complaint on April 23, 2025 of judicial misconduct and bias at the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) against High Court Justice Tawanda Hondora, redistricting claimant Jeremy Enriquez, at the beginning of May, filed an application at the High Court for his (the judge’s) recusal from the case. Enriquez this week explained that they followed up their complaint at the JLSC with another letter, and deemed that the wheels were grinding too slowly on a matter he and his attorney, Senior Counsel Anand Ramlogan, consider urgent.

The complaint against Hondora stems from comments that junior attorneys working with Ramlogan overheard the judge make while his mic was still on during the lunch break for a hybrid (virtual and in person) court session on February 12, 2025. The judge was hearing oral submissions for Enriquez’ application to block the holding of the March 12 general elections due to the Government’s failure to have a long overdue redistricting exercise beforehand. After the court resumed from break, Ramlogan reported that his juniors in Trinidad had overheard the judge say he had made up his mind “to dismiss this application already.” Justice Hondora responded, “Whatever information you’ve been told is patently incorrect.” In the JLSC complaint, Enriquez writes that after hearing the thread of the conversation, one of Ramlogan’s juniors began recording it on a cell phone, and that recording was submitted as evidence. Enriquez considered Hondora’s statements to be prejudicial to his case.

There have now been developments regarding the High Court Application for Hondora’s recusal. On May 12, without a hearing, Hondora issued case management orders on the application. To Enriquez’ astonishment, it included a restriction on the publication of the very same case management orders – except for use in court-connected processes. In other words, he was effectively under a conditional publication restriction, which Enriquez has described as a gag order. The precise wording in the Judge’s order was, “Leave must be sought for permission to use or publish this, and any other, interlocutory order(s) issued by this court in connection with these proceedings for any purpose (a) not connected with the hearing of the matter(s) between the parties; or (b) any relevant statutory process(es) open to the parties.” The judge made the point that, while parties in proceedings are entitled to free expression, the sub judice rule needs to be respected, and they must guard against incomplete, inaccurate and misleading statements on a case.

In the May 12 order, Justice Hondora also requested that Ramlogan file an affidavit listing everyone to whom he shared the Microsoft Teams link for the court session, why he did so, and why the court was not notified that the link had been shared with third parties. He also wanted to know if the device(s) used to record the session could be made available to the court, and if the files have been published on any platform, including the media, and if so, under whose authority. Among other requests, Hondora also asked for Ramlogan to indicate if the audio and/or video has been processed and/or digitally altered. Enriquez deemed these orders as being forced to provide information that would help the judge defend himself against the complaint.

Considering the order to be “oppressive, unreasonable and unfair” and a gross violation of his constitutional rights to free speech and a fair hearing, on May 20, he appealed to the Belize Court of Appeal and asked for a stay of execution. After a hearing of all parties, including the Attorney General as defendant and the Elections and Boundaries Commission as interested party, on June 4, the panel of appellate judges, Madam Justice Hafiz-Bertram, Justice Peter Foster, KC, and Madam Justice Michelle Arana granted a stay against the orders pending the hearing and determination of Enriquez’ application for leave to appeal.

Notably, Justice Hondora has admitted that he did discuss Enriquez’ case with Justice Nadine Nabie during the break to enable him to get a better understanding of the facts and issues which arose in the Smith v. Attorney General case before her, which Ramlogan cited extensively in his submissions on the morning in question. Hondora explained that, because Ramlogan did not include the case in the bundle of authorities sent at 10:44 the night before the hearing, he had not had an opportunity to familiarize himself with the case. However, he has denied having any conversation with Justice Nabie “in which I informed her that I had already decided on the case and/or that I was merely going through the motions having already made up my mind.” Notably, the cell phone recording by Ramlogan’s junior does not specifically capture the judge actually stating that he had already decided to dismiss the application, nor that he was going to clamp down on Ramlogan to teach him a lesson, as the attorney told the court. It did capture Hondora discussing the case. Justice Hondora has also made the point that judges do seek each other’s opinions on case law. He added that after speaking with Justice Nabie, he also had conversations with his doctor and gave instructions to his staff in relation to other matters before him that afternoon.

The Court of Appeal is expected to hear Enriquez’ application for appeal in the October 2025 session. In the meantime, Enriquez has urged the JLSC, chaired by the Chief Justice, to act quickly on his complaint of bias against Hondora.