THE EDITOR, Madam:
JAMAICA FINDS itself in the throes of an ailing economy, yet our politicians find time to over-indulge themselves in endless debates on matters of trifling social and economic significance. I refer to the absurd decision of the government to ignore the voice of the people who voted it into power and to go ahead with plans to do away with the services of the Law Lords of the UK Privy Council and establish a Caribbean Court of Justice, despite the enormous cost of doing so at the expense of our ramshackle court facilities.
Our politicians say there will be no referendum on the matter. They know what is best for 2 1/2 million people whom the UK Privy Council has served so well over the centuries.
This is a demonstration of contempt for democracy.
When will our successive governments, hampered by the narrow and shop level perspectives of some of their politicians, govern with a sense of equity and respect for democracy?
We elect politicians to improve our lives, not to engage in the elusion of saying what is best for us, even if the best is undemocratic and arrantly dictatorial.
Does the presence of Commonwealth judges on the UK Privy Council team not strike down the irrelevant and highly discursive argument of the need to protect our sovereignty by establishing a Caribbean Court of Justice?
I am, etc.,
V. LLOYD SIMPSON
36 Elizabeth Avenue
Kingston 10
