Prime Minister pushes for final court in Jamaica
Published:Wednesday | December 22, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
THE GOVERNMENT has mooted the idea of creating a local court of justice as the seat of Jamaica's final court of appeal.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding sounded the issue yesterday during a debate on the Charter of Rights in the House of Representatives.
"We have to dispense with the Privy Council," Golding said in the fiery debate over whether the country's Constitution should be interpreted by the United Kingdom-based final appeal court or the recently established Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
In his contribution to the debate, Golding said his Government was "not yet satisfied that in doing so (dispensing with the Privy Council) we must take out a final court which is an external entity over which we do not have control as a state to replace it with something else whose existence and continued existence is not even within our gift."
He added: "We wish to continue in great detail and in earnest we believe that we have the judicial experience to do it. We believe that we have the maturity to do it. We wish to consider establishing our final court of appeal in Jamaica. We would respectfully wish that this is something for which consideration ought to be given."
The Opposition, however, has made it clear that it prefers the CCJ as the country's final court of appeal. Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller, who yesterday blasted the Government for dragging its feet on the issue, said her party would be prepared to go to the people to have the decision taken.
"No one can doubt that the time has long passed for the pinnacle of our justice system to be removed from a court whose judges know nothing about the people of Pepper in St Elizabeth, Marley Hill and Bartons in St Catherine, Troy in Trelawny, and how those people live, work and raise their children," Simpson Miller said as she pressed for the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council.
According to Simpson Miller, the constitutional amendments which are intended to guarantee the rights of Jamaicans in the Charter of Rights might not be worth the paper they are written on if Jamaica's final appeal court is not appropriately located.
With Golding leaving the proposed Jamaican court of final appeal for the close of debate, the Opposition did not get an opportunity to respond. The prime minister, however, told the Parliament that Simpson Miller was aware of the suggestion and had indicated that the Opposition was not in support.
Jamaica yet to utilise
The CCJ, the regional judicial tribunal established nine years ago, was designed to be the final appellate court for member states of the Caribbean Community. While Jamaica is a signatory to the establishment of the CCJ, the country has yet to utilise it in its appellate jurisdiction, as cases from the island are still referred to the Privy Council. Only three countries - Barbados, Guyana and Belize - have signed on to the CCJ.
Golding's Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which forms the government, has consistently said it would only abolish use of the CCJ if Jamaicans make that decision in a referendum.
Earlier this month, Jamaican judge Patrick Robinson chided political representatives for their failure to sever the island's ties to the Privy Council as the final court of appeal.
The Constitution requires a minimum of 40 'yes' votes in the 60-seat House and 14 'yes' votes in the Senate for Jamaica to abolish the Privy Council as its court of final appeal.