{"id":31101,"date":"2026-07-26T11:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T15:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/?p=31101"},"modified":"2026-07-26T11:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T15:15:13","slug":"mv-barima-tragedy-former-belizean-justice-of-appeal-to-head-five-member-coi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/mv-barima-tragedy-former-belizean-justice-of-appeal-to-head-five-member-coi\/","title":{"rendered":"MV Barima Tragedy: Former Belizean Justice of Appeal to head five-member COI"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former Belizean Justice of Appeal and distinguished legal expert Godfrey Phillip Smith has been appointed to head the crucial five-member Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the recent MV Barima tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith currently serves as the CARICOM High-Level Representative for Law and Criminal Justice and is the Ad Hoc Justice of Appeal at the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is also a partner at ByronSmith, Arbitrators & Litigation Support Services (St Lucia) and Senior Partner at Marine Parade Chambers, LLP, Attorneys-at-Law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former High Court Judge previously served as one of the commissioners who examined the turbulent events of Guyana\u2019s 2020 General and Regional elections. He has also done voluntary work with private charitable organisations, assessing educational and health projects in Uganda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See credentials below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Education
\u25cf M.A. in International Relations, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Boston (July 2001 \u2013 July 2002)
\u25cf LL.B, University of the West Indies; Norman Manley Law School (September 1989 – June 1994)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Roles
\u25cf High Court Judge, Justice of Appeal (Ag.), Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (January 2017 – January 2020)
\u25cf Attorney-at-Law, Head of Chambers, Marine Parade Chambers, Belize City (March 2008 – December 2016)
\u25cf Minister of Tourism & National Emergency Management (January 2006 – February 2008)
\u25cf Minister of Foreign Affairs & Foreign Trade (March 2003 – April 2006)
\u25cf Attorney General & Minister of Information and Broadcasting (October 1999 – December 2003)
\u25cf Chief of Staff, Office of the Prime Minister, Belize (September 1998 \u2013 September 1999)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literary Works
\u25cf Author: George Price, A Life Revealed, (2012 winner of the Bocas Literary Festival Non-fiction)
\u25cf Michael Manley the Biography (2016 long-listed for the Bocas prize non-fiction)
\u25cf The Assassination of Maurice Bishop (2020)
\u25cf Diary of a Recovering Politician (2023, long-listed for Bocas prize nonfiction)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Belizean Justice of Appeal and distinguished legal expert Godfrey Phillip Smith has been appointed to head the crucial five-member Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the recent MV Barima tragedy.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31102,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[350],"tags":[488,1161,1159,370,1151,412,405],"class_list":["post-31101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-488","tag-coi","tag-commission-of-inquiry","tag-guyana","tag-mv-barima","tag-ncn-guyana","tag-ncn-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31103,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31101\/revisions\/31103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}