Why not the CCJ?

The coming together of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados in formulating a common approach and joint submissions to the Privy Council to have the Council reverse its recent ruling that the death penalty was not mandatory is admittedly historic. It would have been far better, however, and in keeping with the times if the three CARICOM States, along with other English speaking members of the Caribbean Community of Nations (CARICOM) had established the Caribbean Court of Justice, instead of ignominiously hanging on to the judicial coat tails of the Privy Council.

Why is it that more than 40 years after Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago achieved Independence from the United Kingdom, and 27 years after Barbados followed suit, should the Region still deem it necessary for a British institution to be our final Court of Appeal? And with it the power not only to question the validity of laws of CARICOM Member States, but the power to interpret them, and in the process of interpreting these laws the legal authority to tacitly render them of no effect?
The Privy Council has demonstrated a preference for the decision of the United Kingdom Parliament to abolish the death penalty, as opposed to the position on retention of the death penalty by CARICOM countries.

We wish to make clear that it is not the intention of this newspaper to establish a defence for the death penalty, but rather the right of CARICOM Member States to be the final arbiters on what their laws should be, including that of the penalty for murder.Instead, the Privy Council’s recent ruling that the death penalty was not mandatory, not only challenged but effectively changed the law, by its interpretation of it. Clearly, we in the Caribbean must be the final arbiters of laws here. And this, whether the laws which we have accepted and in some cases modified originally formed part of British law. And while, we do not hold to the Old Scripture posture in the Book of Daniel of “the Law of the Medes and Persians”, we feel that save for special instances, for example an international body to which Trinidad and Tobago is a signatory, CARICOM Member States must be responsible for any changes to their laws. Already, Trinidad and Tobago and many other CARICOM countries have agreed on breaking away from the long accepted General Certificate of Education Advanced Level Examinations, set in the United Kingdom, and creating the Region’s own University entrance requirement examination, the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination [CAPE]. 

This country, along with Guyana, adopted a Republican Constitution, and no longer regards the Queen of England as its Head of State. In turn, there is the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Trinidad and Tobago which decades ago ceased to recognise the British Queen as the Head of the Church and changed relevant prayers to give effect to this. It is regretttable, that in Trinidad and Tobago, the Opposition United National Congress, which when it was in Government had in addition to agreeing to the Caribbean Court of Justice to replace the Privy Council as CARICOM countries’ final Court of Appeal, and its headquarters being sited here, is today obstructing the establishing of the CCJ.But UNC obstructionism or not there is the clear need for the creating of the CCJ and the Region’s consigning of the Privy Council to Caribbean history books.