NICHOLSON Robert Hart, Staff Reporter
THE GOVERNMENT has declared that the controversial legislation on the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) will be debated in Parliament within the next two months.
Senator A.J. Nicholson, the Minster of Justice, told the Senate yesterday that the debate on the three pieces of legislation would start at the earliest convenient time in the current quarter of this legislative year.
The announcement came little more than a week after a Judicial Review Court ruled against claims filed in the Supreme Court by Leader of the Opposition Edward Seaga, the Jamaican Bar Association, the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights (IJCHR) and lobby group Jamaicans for Justice.
In February the parties had claimed that the Bills were unconstitutional, noting that the CCJ would not be entrenched in the Constitution of Jamaica. The Government subsequently filed a counter claim, seeking to have the actions struck out, and delayed the debate on the Bills until the court could rule.
But yesterday the Justice Minister acknowledged that an appeal had already been filed in the wake of the ruling against the various groups. However, he gruffly reiterated that the Government would not agree to any lengthy deliberations on the matter.
"Any such action on our part would be a breach of the Government's treaty obligation to have these Bills considered and, if Parliament so decides, enacted into law so the CCJ can be established in the course of this calendar year," Senator Nicholson said.
"I wish to state emphatically, and so there is no misunderstanding in the public mind, that the ruling of the court does not prevent the applicants from bringing their action challenging the constitutionality of the legislation after these bill have been enacted into law."
Senator Nicholson explained that the court had ruled that the timing of the claim was inappropriate. "Any suggestion therefore that these claimants are being deprived of their right to challenge the validity of this legislation is false and mischievous," he said.
But the Government's stance has been viewed by the Opposition as a direct slap against the appeal filed by the IJCHR last week.
Senator Anthony Johnson, Leader of Opposition Business, argued that the Government, since it had initially accepted that there was a right to challenge the Bills, ought to allow the processes of the challenge to be fully pursued.
"The first of which is the appeal which has been filed," Senator Johnson said.
But the Justice Minister countered, arguing that though he would have agreed under normal circumstances, this case was different.
"What is attempted here is to prevent the debate and passage of Bills. If it were otherwise, all a member of the House or Senate would have to do, if he or she is not in agreement with a provision in a Bill, is take the matter to the court and stymie the work of the Parliament."
He added: "We do not agree that the court has jurisdiction in this particular case, unless the passage of the Bill would bring immediate, irreparable damage to a claimant."
