End the foreign control
published: Saturday | February 26, 2005

THE EDITOR, Sir:

Jamaica does not need a Caribbean Court of Justice to deal with national matters. Neither does it need the alien institution presided by colonial 'masters' to tell us how to interpret the laws which we choose to legislate. I refuse to accept that we are lacking in intellect and/or integrity to make fair and proper decisions, in keeping with the laws which we want to govern our state.

I must once more ask the question, why must our final decisions be determined by foreigners? The PNP feels it should be done by folks of the Caribbean and the JLP feels pure justice is the divine prerogative of 'mother' England. Hence, we are condemned to foreign supervision indefinitely. I am proposing an end to this foreign control of our independence and further suggest that the Jamaica Court of Appeal be our final court. However if we must have a court superior to the Court of Appeal, that court must be a Jamaican court, properly protected as are other superior courts.

If we are independent, then cut this cord of colonial subjugation called the Privy Council. If there is no political federation, there is no need for trying to integrate the judicial system. We must recognise that no sovereign state can have a foreign institution in the position which the Privy Council now occupies or which it is contemplated to put the CCJ, without compromising that state's sovereignty. One of the principal requirements of independence is the right to make and interpret the laws which govern the society. It is asinine to think you have a right to make laws, if the power to interpret them resides in a foreign body.

I am, etc.,

LUCIUS C. WHITE

Tankerville Avenue,

Kingston 6