WE ARE concerned about Prime Minister P.J. Patterson's insistence on sticking to the letter of the law and his consequent refusal to submit the issue of the removal of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the final court of appeal to a referendum. This concern is heightened because there is to be what amounts to a post facto referendum to entrench the Caribbean Court of Justice.The manner in which the Prime Minister proposes to remove one appellate jurisdiction and replace it with another seems at best to be a whimsical way to proceed. This in essence is the point made by Bar Association President Derek Jones when he asks: "What sense does it make abolishing the right of appeal to the Privy Council, you then establish the court, then you put it to the people? What happens if the people say no then?" What would indeed happen if that were the outcome?
There is a significant body of opinion in the country that is opposed to the removal of the Privy Council as the final Court of Appeal. There are also those views that hold that while it is a good thing to have a final court more rooted in our realities and sensibilities, the affordability of a Caribbean Court and its ranking in our order of priorities is questionable.
This is an issue of such fundamental importance, that we believe it would represent a triumph of democracy if the voice of the people were to be heard, before a decision is taken on the action that will be pursued. Adopting this course would not, in our view, derogate from the authority of the political administration nor would it detract from the mandate that they received at the polls. What it would do is demonstrate their sensitivity to the genuine concerns of the people, which is and always will be a hallmark of good government.
Up to now the public debate has involved principally the opposing political viewpoints and the legal spokesmen of the Bar with a vested interest in what is essentially a technical matter of forensic import.
We think there should be an effort at educating the people at large particularly about the operation of the Privy Council. We suspect that not many are aware of the extent to which Commonwealth judges are involved in its work; which to some extent belies the notion of a purely English institution.
We maintain that the crucial criterion should be untainted justice as the ideal objective of the rule of law. It would be an awkward instance of poetic justice if the question of a referendum should end up in the courts and ultimately with the Privy Council itself!
