Dawn Ritch FOR THREE consecutive days I sat on a wooden bench in the Supreme Court, watching the trial of Dr. Paul Chen Young, who was testifying by video link from Miami, Florida, where he now resides. This is the case brought against him by the Government of Jamaica.
It was a historic event not only from the point of view of technology. The case involves important matters of law resulting from the collapse of the Eagle financial network. Paul, although a Jamaican exile of five years, continues to be my very dear friend and I was there to show my solidarity with him.
The judge wore a horse-hair wig, and all the lawyers were properly attired in their black gowns. The courtroom itself looked magisterial beyond words when framed in the video. This was truly amazing because I was sitting in it, and could see that the walls were mildewed by rain. Yet there on video the mildew on the walls looked like fantastic medieval tapestry in four neat panels. Every time a lawyer rose to his feet, it was like Venus rising from the waves. Those robes can make an elephant seem to dance on the head of a pin.
REPUTATION
If I'm ever on trial for my reputation or my life, I hope it is in a court such as this. Horse-hair wigs itch unbelievably, but when a judge wears one, it removes him from the normal course of man. His remoteness is necessary in the dispensation of justice. This is what has led in large part to the awe and respect in which the courthouse is held.
There are official efforts now to remove the Privy Council as the final court of appeal, and replace it with a regional Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The JLP Opposition has already compromised the principle. They have agreed to a trial period of 10 years for the CCJ as an intermediary court while keeping the Privy Council, and a referendum immediately thereafter on the CCJ. The JLP's position is a gutless cop-out.
Funds have been borrowed to establish this new court. Bear in mind that the Government has already borrowed far too much money. Nor is there any clear official idea of how existing debt is to be repaid, other than through greater taxation.
The roof of Jamaica's own Supreme Court is leaking. The unbelievably mountainous garbage of old case files there have not been cleared in years, and climbs to the sky like a staircase. Maintenance of the courts we already have ought therefore to have financial priority over raising funds for any new court. But it is not so in the Government's plans. Unfortunately Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition has already acquiesced in this scandalous waste of the country's substance.
Young lawyers are been graduated by the University of the West Indies in unprecedented numbers, all eager for a job. This promises ever more litigation for the Caribbean, on the order perhaps even of the most litigious society, America. A lot more soft bums will therefore be on hard wooden benches in future. None of it good for Jamaica's economic development.
I think the Caribbean Court of Justice is a terrible mistake, not least because none of the territories can afford it financially. Jamaica is building new prisons that can't keep the prisoners behind bars, has old prisons in which many innocent people are detained for decades because their files have been lost or burnt. There is over-crowding both there and at the police stations, which are equally in need of repair. This ought to be the financial priority in the interests of the people of the country.
The establishment of the CCJ is only in the interests of the egos of the regional politicians, not one of whom has asked their local people for permission to deprive them of their legal rights. The summary removal of our right of appeal to Her Majesty's Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, on which sit senior judges in England and other Commonwealth countries, including Jamaica, would compromise our right to independent jurisprudence.
It doesn't matter a bit to me that New Zealand, whose majority population is white, has thrown away the horse-hair wig, abolished the Privy Council and established a national final court. At least the indigenous Maoris have the good sense to object.
LEGAL PRECEDENTS
Readers should note that legal precedents established in any Commonwealth country are sought after. They become a part of law libraries throughout the Commonwealth, including the Privy Council, and are of persuasive authority. The very idea of a national final court, or an intermediary court here or in the Caribbean, is repugnant to me.
Our doctors are international, and we should retain the right to expect the same of our lawyers, especially in human rights cases. Why should Jamaican lawyers be deprived of the company and counsel of their finest peers in the Commonwealth, and be judged by them in council, in order to establish a "Caribbean Jurisprudence"? As a Queen's Counsel told me last week "Status is not an adequate measure of quality."
It is well-accepted that decisions of the Privy Council are the best that we can get. These decisions are respected throughout the world, regardless of nationality or race. It is a truism that distance increases objectivity.
An individual can never have too many passports, nor too many courts. But as in passports, one Jamaican or Trinidadian passport for example, is good enough for a resident in our region. After that the drive is to collect British, American and Canadian passports and the right to work in those countries. Just as we need more opportunities for work, we need more opportunities for justice, not less.
We should never give up our right of final appeal to the Privy Council in order to establish another local regional court. It turns the whole idea of independent justice on its head, just so we can add another inevitably crumbling layer of local jurisprudence. And all this at the ruinous expense of already deeply-overburdened Jamaican taxpayers.
Readers should note that more human rights have been protected by the Privy Council than by any domestic court in the Region. It has served us well at no cost to our taxpayers. Why get rid of it? Contrary to the Most Honourable, I do not believe that laws are but a tool for social engineering. I believe that law is the only protection against the arbitrary edicts of an overweening state.
