Letter of the Day | We deserve properly informed debate on Privy Council

THE EDITOR, Madam:

A letter to the editor published on June 10 offers a distorted contribution to the Privy Council debate. The author clearly feels unhappy with what he describes as a “new procedure” adopted by the Privy Council. It is not directed at Jamaican citizens. It applies to appeals from all jurisdictions where the merits of an appeal are not tested at a permission stage, before proceeding to a full hearing.

Nor is there anything radical about it. The Privy Council (like many common law appellate courts globally) found itself dismissing appeals at a full hearing which could often have fared better with proper preparation, which happens where permission to appeal is required and the basic merits are tested at that stage.

What the “new procedure” is therefore doing is enabling the jurists within the Privy Council to inform appellants in jurisdictions where no permission is required that their appeals are lacking – so they can improve them before a full hearing. That can only help the appellants and their attorneys. Why turn down such assistance where it is being offered? After all, the “right” of which the author speaks is only to file an appeal without permission. There is no right to succeed.

Where an appeal cannot be improved, then the principle is that the appeal should be struck out. Again, why should any party with a good appeal want to have their full hearing delayed by such bad appeals clogging up the system? What the Privy Council is doing has already been done by the Court of Appeal in England, and reflects a sensible procedural reform being adopted in many common law jurisdictions as a means of improving efficiency and the speed with which good appeals can be heard.

In no way, as the author suggests, can this sensibly be described as “emasculating” the rights of appeals of Jamaican citizens. In fact, it improves the speed of access to justice for good appeals, and helps in other cases where appeals may appear poor and where direction is required from the Privy Council in order to help present a more arguable case.

There is also nothing “colonial” or prejudiced about any of this. Jamaican citizens are already very familiar with delays and poor cases clogging up their own court system. I strongly suspect that many would welcome any sensible attempt at improving efficiency and speed of access to justice.

The author is also wrong to identify “Jamaicans as the only people in all history obliged to obtain a travel visa” to attend the Privy Council. Whenever a person from any jurisdiction served by the Privy Council is unable to obtain a visa or travel for any other reason, they can ask the Privy Council to hear them by video. This routinely happens, and is neither a special privilege for nor in some way directed only at Jamaicans.

It matters not that I am one of the “Jamaican citizens” who the author believes is having their rights allegedly taken away. What does matter is that contributions to the important debate about the relevance and future of the Privy Council should be properly informed, balanced, and unemotional in content. Otherwise we are in danger of making decisions based on rhetoric and impulse.

GRAHAM HUNTLEY