Caricom’s united approach on death penalty

ATTORNEY GENERAL John Jeremie will head to Jamaica on Monday to attend a meeting of CARICOM Legal Affairs Ministers to discuss a number of issues, the most important being the approach of the Caribbean to the Privy Council in March in their attempt to have the mandatory death sentence returned. While in Jamaica, Jeremie will meet separately with his counterparts from Barbados (Mia Mottley) and Jamaica (Arnold Nicholson) to discuss their approach in an attempt to have the Law Lords overturn the Balkissoon Roodal judgment.

On November 20, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in the case of convicted TT killer Balkissoon Roodal, ruled that the mandatory death sentence was unconstitutional. The Law Lords said the trial judge was the appropriate person to pass sentence on a convicted killer. But Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Jamaica are heading to the Privy Council on March 22, 2004 to argue their case for the mandatory death sentence to remain as the law in the Caribbean. A nine-member Board of the Privy Council will be assembled to hear this matter. Next week’s meeting will be the first for Jeremie since his appointment as Attorney General last month. During the two-day meeting, Jeremie will discuss the approach of the three islands as they seek to have the Privy Council return the mandatory death sentence as the law in the Caribbean. Three cases from Trinidad, Barbados, and Jamaica, have been listed in the Privy Council on March 22. For the next four days, while attorneys for convicted killers will seek to stop their execution, the three countries will seek to convince the Law Lords that the Roodal decision is not right for the Caribbean.

TT’s Chief Justice Sat Sharma will also meet next week with the Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean States Sir Dennis Byron and Sir David Simmons, Chief Justice of Barbados, to discuss the implications of the Roodal decision. Sharma is presently in England on private business. While in Jamaica, the Legal Affairs Ministers will also discuss the status of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The majority of Caribbean islands have laid legislation in their Parliaments to have the CCJ as the final appellate court replacing the Privy Council. No legislation has been laid in the Trinidad and Tobago Parliament. Government needs a special majority to have the CCJ legislation enacted so the Privy Council can be replaced. But the Opposition United National Congress (UNC) has already indicated that it will not support the Government on the CCJ legislation. It was the UNC, while in Government, which signed the treaty in 1997 for the establishment of the Caribbean Court. Members of the Regional Judicial and Service Commission, headed by Barbados’ Chief Justice Sir David Simmons, have already been appointed and they have begun the task of appointing judges and other staff for the court which will have its headquarters in Port-of-Spain.