The sight of the highest court in the region, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), sitting in this country in judgment on matters concerning and touching the region is a seminal statement of immense importance to our political and legal development.
True it is that not all the countries in the region have yet accessed the appellate jurisdiction of the court, but the original jurisdiction was in play in the Shanique Myrie case, and we have all subscribed to that aspect of the court’s adjudicative power.
The fact that for centuries we genuflected to the final supremacy of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was always a potent reminder of our status as colonies.
This fact alone reinforced the notion that our subservience to a foreign colonial power had many aspects, and that the final determination of our disputes by judges of a court in a foreign land was part and parcel of our factual, constitutional and political dependence.
It made little difference to our colonial dependent status whether the quality of their judgments was of the highest order, for even if that was the case, such worthy words from the lips of judges sequestered in London were not infused by the warm air of the Caribbean nor by the social mores and conditions in these parts.
And if it is true that law is but a social science applied sensitively by judges who live and breathe the same air and reality of the people whom they judge, then political independence required and demanded the timely removal of the Privy Council as the final step in the recapture of our freedom.
The establishment of the CCJ and the move away from the Privy Council are therefore high political acts in the sense that all exercise of power and authority on behalf of any sovereign people represents a political act.
In that sense our final court of appeal is as potent and patent a symbol of our independence as the Privy Council was a constant reminder of our dependent and colonial status. This past week’s sittings of the court are therefore deeply important and symbolic.
This final court is the product of hard and ingenious work designed to establish it and to ensure its functional integrity; and we feel that regional confidence in the court, earned by what we have read before, has been immeasurably reinforced by what we have seen during this past week.
As part of the Fourth Estate, we remain committed to the view that the remaining members of the Caribbean should move with all deliberate haste to ensure that they complete their “circle of independence” by subscribing to the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ.
The quality of the judgments so far emanating from that court and its clear demonstration of high judicial competence and independence ought to commend the acceptance of the court to all Caribbean people.
Its establishment and the efficient and proper manner of its operations represent the apex of self-determination, and that is what the struggle for our independence was all about!
