JAMAICA | The Reform Agenda: No Safe Pair of Hands Minister Chuck?

KINGSTON, JAMAICA, December 16, 2025 - These are reflections on a prominent news item in The Jamaica Observer of Friday, December 5, titled: "(L)et's get it done", concerning an unimagined public proposition delivered by Justice Minister Delroy Chuck.

It is altogether bewildering how the disastrous Hurricane Melissa could have served to accentuate the cold, unjust stance heartlessly adopted by a government of our own people concerning denial of access to final justice experienced by the majority of our citizens.

Transfer of portfolio responsibility for constitutional affairs into the hands of Minister Delroy Chuck coincided with an extensive section of our country, including the bread basket parish of St Elizabeth, being ravaged by the most powerful hurricane in Jamaica's recorded history.

It is estimated that it will require multi billions of dollars over several years of concerted restoration effort for normalcy to return to the western parishes, in particular.

The catastrophic happening called for deep meditation by Minister Chuck for him to be able to present to our people, in their distress, a well-thought-out, sensitive approach to constitutional reform, a longtime issue on the public agenda.

Two upfront items are on that reform agenda: a desirable move for Jamaica to become a Republic; and availability of the privilege of being able to exercise the right of access to final justice to be provided to all our citizens. 

Throughout the years, only the wealthy have been favoured to enjoy that emancipating privilege.

Let us recall that the journey toward republican status constitutionally requires attentive engagement of the adult population, and a referendum exercise demanding an outlay of hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Of course, by any thinking, as a result of the unprecedented challenges faced by the country, no such contemplation could ever be envisaged at this juncture.

On the contrary, provision of access to final justice, too long denied to generations, can be freely realised in short order without any intense people participation, by a vote in each parliamentary chamber to enable us to fulfill our treaty obligation to link to the appellate jurisdiction of the universally acclaimed Caribbean Court of Justice.

Chuck and the government, however, remain stonily unmoved, insistent on a dream of a big-budget local final appellate court, and that the deprived must await Jamaica becoming suitably positioned for an expensive referendum to be held on whether such a court should be created or remain tied to the inaccessible Privy Council.

Meantime, they bluntly refuse to give any reason whatsoever why any suggestion of the long denied privilege of access being justly granted to the overwhelming majority of our people by abandoning the British institution to transition to the regional court is, for them, completely off the table; not even as an interim measure, pending the emergence of their sought-after local final court!

Yet, astonishingly, in relation to the exacting people-engaging, costly venture to attain republican status, the Observer of Friday, December 5, reported that Justice Minister Chuck, recently addressing justices of the peace in the Corporate Area, in this agonising aftermath of the hurricane calamity, proceeded to invite Opposition Leader, Mark Golding, to "(L)et's get it done... by next year". What?

A flabbergasted Farmer Joe who resides in the rustic hills of Central Jamaica, from where Delroy Chuck and I both hail, is now in the autumn of his years.

Under commonsense tutelage, having been schooled at the college of hard knocks, recalling that republican status, undoubtedly welcome as it would be, will bring no tangible benefit to our people, he would succinctly declare in shock lament: "Good Lord, Minister!"

Dutifully then, Minister Chuck, is the clear message for the vast disadvantaged majority of our people, your employers in this practising democracy, that yours are not a caring, safe pair of hands?

AJ NICHOLSON 

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