The Supreme Court building, downtown Kingston.
-File photoEarl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer
PROFESSOR REX Nettleford, former Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI), has strongly repudiated any notion of continued reliance on the U.K.'s based Privy Council in London, as the region's final court of appeal, describing the current arrangement as unacceptable in the 21st century.
"I know that there is a body of opinion in Jamaica that feels that anything ethical, or anything sensible, or anything of value still resides in London. This I reject totally; I could never be party to that feeling because I have dedicated my life, as many other people have, to celebrating our sovereignty by doing right," Professor Nettleford asserted in an interview with The Gleaner/Power 106 News Centre.
In wake of last week's ruling by the Privy Council, that the approach taken by the Government to establish a new final court of appeal for the country was unconstitutional and void, Professor Nettleford is recommending that the Government and Opposition engage in discussions aimed at finding a consensus on how to achieve that goal.
TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY VOTE
That approach, he said, would allow the Government to achieve the two-thirds majority vote in Parliament required to entrench the CCJ in the Constitution, in keeping with the position of the Privy Council.
"I would recommend that... that would be wonderful!" he said.
There was precedent for such by-partisan action, he said, pointing to the approach adopted by the founders, Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante of the country's two major parties.
"We went up to Marlborough House to discuss our Independence with the signatures of both Bustamante and Manley on the document. That is something in our history that we ought to feel proud about, and if they (the two parties today) can get together and get the kind of consensus which is necessary... Mr. Patterson says he is still committed to the CCJ and the CSME and Mr. Golding and company are saying let us meet. I think this is a good sign and I hope we won't blow it," he said.
TIME FOR ACTION
Professor Nettleford, an unrepentant regionalist, was a member of the West Indian Commission, which, in a 1992 report dubbed 'Time for Action', called for the establishing of a final court for the region, known today as the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
This and other institutions were recommended by the Commission, chaired by Sir Shridadth Ramphal, as practical steps by which to advance the regional integration process, having consulted with the people across the region and in the Diaspora.
Jamaica is scheduled to be among the three founding members of the CCJ, scheduled to officially begin operation in April. With the ruling of the Privy Council going against the Jamaican Government's approach to establishing its membership in the court, however, the country's early participation has been put in doubt.
That setback, he said, was likely to reinforce a cynical view prevalent in the rest of the Commonwealth Caribbean as to Jamaica's commitment to regional integration, harking back to the country's role in the demise of the ill-fated West Indies Federation. "The view will be, 'there goes Jamaica again mashing up the region'... There is almost a love-hate relationship in parts of the Eastern Caribbean, and we are not trusted because we tend to be too nationalistic, selfishly so," he said.
While emphasising that he did not take issue with the reasoning of the Law Lords in the latest ruling, or question their motives, the respected scholar argued that there were some in the Jamaican society who continued to rely, unthinkingly, on the perceived moral superiority of the British government and justice system.
We'll have excerpts from Earl Moxam's interview with Professor Nettleford in Monday's edition of The Gleaner.
