Why the hassle over Caribbean Court?

THE EDITOR: It was Kwame Nkrumah leader of the CPP in the then Gold Coast, who when asked if he thought that the Gold Coast was ready for Independence, replied: “It is not a question of whether we are ready or not ready.  The time has come to give us the chance to guide or misguide ourselves.”  This was in 1960!  It is almost impossible for me to believe that in 2003 there would be any hassle in the former British Caribbean over the establishment of a Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), an initiative that any elementary student of West Indian history would assume is a natural course in the progress and development of Caribbean people.

The first two professions available to our free people after the abolition of slavery and indentureship were Law and Medicine.  Our ambitious colonial citizens, as they were back then, with their limited freedoms, pursued them vigourously and relentlessly.  We are well aware of the tremendous sacrifices our forefathers and mothers made.  These were our first and second generation students who travelled to the then mother country to obtain the elusive medical degree or become a barrister at Law, as it was commonly known.  In those days, when their sons returned home by boat as a doctor or lawyer, the pride and joy those parents and by extension the village and community felt were the hallmark of their achievement and recognition.

Even though jobs in the public sector were not easily forthcoming, they now had the right to put up their shingles and enjoy private and independent practice.  Everyone in the village/community knew the doctor or the lawyer and generally they did not fail us.  Whatever their race or ethnicity, they took their studies and professions seriously, sometimes far exceeding the children of their colonial masters, both in knowledge and colonial mannerisms. Those of us old enough would compare some of our recently returned “fresh water” professionals’ behaviour. Rumour has it that one lawyer, even when at home, used to put on his jacket and hat to answer the phone when it rang.  When asked by his wife why he was doing that, he promptly replied that he “did not know who was calling.”  Yet another, at a family celebration on his return to the village, inquired about a delicacy served.  He was told that it was baigan/melongene, he promptly discarded it, stating, “Let bygones be bygones, I am a doctor.”  “Them fellas” were not easy, but they were the pioneers.

They are gone, but they have left a very enviable record extremely hard to equal. Sometimes it appears even harder to surpass, and that’s what makes it difficult for me to understand the hassle over the natural development of the CCJ in a region that has produced the following distinguished legal luminaries — Norman Washington Manley, Grantley Adams, Lionel Luckoo, Sir Shridath Ramphal, Sir Ellis Clarke, Teleford Georges, Aubrey Fraser, Charlie Child, Lennox and Guy O’Reilly, Louis and Pope Wharton, HOB Wooding, Sir Courtney Hannays, ERL Ward, Michael De La Bastide, Henry and Karl Hudson Phillip, Sir Isaac Hyatali, Tajmool Hosein, Malcolm Butt, E Mortimer Duke, Edgar Gaston Johnson Snr and Jnr, Mitra Sinanan, Martin Daly, Russel Martineau, Dr Fenton Ramsahoye, Dr Claude Benbow, and many more, too numerous to mention — who would have excelled anywhere in the world!
Must I say more?  Why do we continue to be dependent on our former masters using all kind of bogus, illogical, insensitive excuses for our own downright lack of confidence in ourselves?  Isn’t this the dependency syndrome that we so often condemn?  Today the decisions of the Supreme Court in the USA are constantly being questioned.  The Privy Council is becoming more irrelevant in the UK as they become more and more European.  Let’s stop the masquerade, approve the court in honour and respect of those distinguished and eminent jurists who pioneered the course and set the standards for the independence we now enjoy in our Judiciary.

FERDIE FERREIRA
Diego Martin