THE OPPOSITION Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) seems to have an unwavering attachment to national referenda on significant political issues, dating back to 1961 when it succeeded in pushing then Prime Minister Norman Manley’s People’s National Party (PNP) to hold a referendum on whether the country should remain in a then centrally weak West Indies Federation.
The “yes” vote to secede won, leaving then Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams to offer the piquant quip, “one from ten leaves nought”. The then British colonies that comprised the Federation were to separately move for Independence. It came first for Jamaica and then Trinidad and Tobago in 1962 within weeks of each other.
Now in 2014, some 52 years later, the JLP is once again engaged in internal debates in favour of a national referendum on whether or not Jamaica should remain a member of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) and for such an issue to be linked with the conduct of new general elections.
Jamaicans, not only those supporting the governing PNP, who have come to appreciate the value in having the CCJ as this region’s court of last resort, would find this negative thinking within the JLP particularly disturbing.
Ironically, while influential personalities in the JLP are politicking in favour of associating a referendum to stay or withdraw Jamaica’s membership with a new national election, influential law lords and legal luminaries in Britain are themselves increasingly expressing hopes that independent CARICOM states would recognize the time is long overdue to cease accessing the jurisdiction of the British Privy Council as their final appellate court.
Established in 2001 with an appellate and final jurisdiction, the CCJ is governed by a treaty to which all member states are signatories – whether or not they are yet to access it as their court of final resort – as done by Barbados, Guyana and Belize and, soon, Dominica.
Operating with an original jurisdiction in the settlement of trade and other disputes, the CCJ is the court to which Jamaica can also turn to resolve claimed recurring bilateral trade disputes with Trinidad and Tobago, something it has repeatedly failed to do.
Having met its share of US$27 million for an independent fund established under an agreement with the Caribbean Development Bank, which had raised, at CARICOM’S request, US$100 million for financing the operations of the CCJ, the JLP is too experienced in governance politics not to appreciate the implications of ignoring the regional court in preference for the Privy Council.
It is indeed ironical that in 2014, amid rising complaints over the failure to make a lived reality of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, the JLP could still be talking about having a referendum on whether to end appeals to the Privy Council. The simple truth is Britain itself is anxious for its former colonies to free themselves from dependency on the Privy Council.