SINKINSONDamion Mitchell, Staff Reporter
PHIL SINKINSON, Deputy British High Commissioner to Jamaica has dismissed claims that the reforming of the United Kingdom's judicial system was an attempt to prevent Caribbean nations from using its courts.
"It is there for you people to decide whether you want to use it or not, it is there for the entire Commonwealth," he said.
Mr. Sinkinson was speaking at Thursday's launch of the Caribbean Association for the Resettlement of Returning Residents (CARRR) at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston.
Shortly after British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, disclosed plans for a Supreme Court to replace the Law Lords - a panel of judges who sit in the House of Lords as Britain's highest Court of Appeal, Justice Minister, Senator A. J Nicholson said the announcement was a "wake-up call" for the Caribbean to establish its own court.
But, Mr. Sinkinson said yesterday, "If you (the Caribbean) want to use it (Privy Council) -very well, if you don't want to use it - no problem."
Senator Delano Franklyn, State Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, told the same function that, "the importance of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is being undermined by those who are yet to let go off the view that what is foreign is best."
According to him, there were no reasons to be "tied judicially" to a court in a distant land. He described comments that Caribbean judges were incompetent to preside over the proposed Caribbean Court, as an "insult to the fine minds and intellectual acuity of those who occupy judicial seats."
