With the dawn of a new year, the cause of Caribbean unity seems a little less certain. We have already experienced the tremor of individual law schools springing up in Jamaica and now it seems, Trinidad, but the recent statement by Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding is like a hose of cold water in the face.
Mr Golding is the present chairman of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and chooses this moment to announce that there is a heavy possibility that his country may not join the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), but may establish its own final court of appeal instead.
This disclosure emerged during a debate on the proposed replacement chapter on fundamental rights and freedoms in the present constitution. Members of the opposition were pressing for the settlement of the issue of the final appellate court along with the passage of the charter, when the prime minister announced that “we wish to consider our own final court of appeal . . . . It is something we wish to consider in great detail and in earnest”.
The shock value of this announcement should not be underestimated. Already the CCJ has been established and Jamaica and Trinidad, two of the larger islands, have not joined the court. One remembers with anguish that it was the exit of Jamaica from the failed Federation which led to the famous mathematical equation of Dr Eric Williams of Trinidad, that one from ten leaves nought.
The honourable prime minister went onto tell Parliament that members of the government and opposition were in favour of joining the CCJ in all its jurisdictions, but he warned against presuming there was a consensus among the people on the issue, which his party had always asserted was one for a referendum.
Those Caribbean people who are considered regionalists must be having nightmares of déjà vu; but the benefit of the experiences of the past 50 years should have told us that the cause of unity is greater than the cause of individual effort, and that the future of the region resides in its capacity to unite as one.
Ironically, just three weeks before, a distinguished Jamaican jurist, Judge Patrick Robinson of the International Criminal Court, had made a most powerful call for Jamaica to become a member of the CCJ.
He drew attention to the fact that the number of appeals allowed by the Privy Council from the Jamaica Court of Appeal was about the same as allowed by the House of Lords from the English Court of Appeal, a point which he rightly said showed that Jamaican judges were as good, or a bad, as British judges. We have no doubt that this is true of other Caribbean islands and it is a clear barometer of the high quality of regional judges.
In any event, research in the law reports will show that some of our judges have taken part in hearings of the Privy Council from time to time and would hardly have been invited if they were not of the high calibre normally found on that panel of judges.
We are alarmed at this turn of events in Jamaica, and coupled with the reluctance of the Trinidadians to join the CCJ, we can only urge our fellow Caribbean people wherever they may be, to raise their voices in support of calls like that of Judge Robinson for the affirmation by all regional governments of the CCJ as the regional final court of appeal in both its original and appellate jurisdictions.
Here is Mr Robinson again: “The failure on our part to seize the plenitude of sovereignty available to us is a betrayal of the hopes and aspirations of our oppressed and disadvantaged forebears and constitutes a misuse of the independence and freedom, now ours, through their struggle and sacrifice.”
We concur and have nothing to add!
