Kamla hits AG on CCJ Bill

SIPARIA MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar has hit Attorney General John Jeremie for halting debate on the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Bill in the House of Representatives last Monday. Jeremie had said the Government needed to first see the outcome of a case at the UK-based Privy Council where the Jamaican opposition was seeking a ruling that a referendum was required before the CCJ could replace the Privy Council in Jamaica. Jeremie said his Government is supporting the Jamaican government which says no referendum is needed, but Persad-Bissessar described Jeremie’s reasoning as madness. She said the two countries had different constitutions, and therefore different requirements to change their laws to replace the Privy Council with the CCJ as the top appellate court.

“The AG must give us the specifics as to the relevance to our own situation” She said the Jamaican constitution does not entrench the right to access the Privy Council, unlike the Trinidad and Tobago Constitution where a three-fourths majority of MPs are required in order to do away with the body. The Jamaican opposition has bemoaned that just as the Privy Council is not entrenched in the Jamaican constitution, likewise the CCJ did not get the protection of entrenchment because the Jamaican government had passed its CCJ Bill with merely a simple majority in its parliament. Persad-Bissessar also said that unlike Jamaica, our Constitution did not mandate that a referendum be held before the Constitution is amended.

She declared: “So the two issues which the Jamaican government has before the Privy Council (ie entrenchment and referendum) have nothing to do with Trinidad and Tobago.” Persad-Bissessar accused the Government of wasting time and money in seeking to go to the Privy Council to join the Jamaican government’s defence of the passage of the CCJ. “In law Trinidad and Tobago has no locus standi (ie standing) to appear at that Privy Council hearing because the issues are not in our Constitution.”