EDITORIAL - Mr Golding's final court

We wish the Golding administration would make up its mind on something, including what institution it wants to be Jamaica's court of last resort.

When Prime Minister Bruce Golding's party was the Opposition and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) was being mooted as the final court to replace the UK-based Privy Council, the Jamaica Labour Party raised a number of concerns. Chief among these was the possibility for political interference and manipulation of the court, and how the CCJ would be addressed.

These issues were addressed. There can hardly be any other court anywhere in the world that has the level of insulation from political control, given the structure and the mode for appointing the members of the Regional Judicial Services Commission that appoints all the court's judges, save the chief justice.

With regard to financing of the operation of the court, the contracting parties to the CCJ made a one-off US$100-million contribution to an independently managed trust fund, the returns from which is to be used for the court's business.

Mr Golding's party supports the constitutional challenge of the process that was being used for the CCJ to displace the Privy Council in which the UK law lords essentially held that any such move had to be certified by a referendum.

More recently, with Mr Golding now the head of Government and the UK chief justice baulking at how many cases from jurisdictions like Jamaica impinged on his judges' time, the prime minister promised a review of the Government's position on the CCJ. There was more than a hint that the PM was positive.

Now, out of the blue, he has suggested that his administration wants Jamaica to "consider establishing our final court of appeal in Jamaica".

We agree with Mr Golding that "we have the judicial experience to do it" and accept that it has a nice nationalistic ring, and that will get the blood of Jamaica Labour Party partisans pumping. We, nonetheless, suggest that the prime minister think carefully on the matter and quickly dump it.

Jamaica already has US$27 million in the CCJ, which it cannot recover, but for a service that it by and large does not utilise.

We have absolute respect for and faith in the Jamaican judiciary, whose integrity remains unimpaired, notwithstanding the process for appointing its judges. But it is likely that the same questions of insulation for a third-tier court, which were supported by Mr Golding's party, are likely to arise with the creation of a Jamaican-only final court.

The idea does have a good political ring but, in the long run, it is likely to be just more distraction and delay.

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