JAMAICA | Local Final Appeal Court? Perish the Thought! Says A. J. Nicholson

KINGSTON,  Jamaica August 4, 2024 - This is an open query to Justice Minister Delroy Chuck who has publicly insisted that Jamaicans should have their own final court of appeal.

Driven perhaps by nationalist fervour, Minister, do you not regard your proposal as awkward at best, given that our justice ministers at budget time throughout all the years have bemoaned the poor cousin treatment accorded to that portfolio?

The following are excerpts from an item in The Gleaner of Thursday, July 26, titled: "Supreme Court staffers cry out against 'inhumane, degrading' working conditions":

"The staff outlined in detail some of the problems they face on the job, one of which, they said, was the 'fiery furnace' that persons in the court registries have to endure because of malfunctioning air-conditioning units...our bodies...literally producing buckets of sweat".

"(C)ockroaches are plaguing the building because of the intense heat in the lunchroom...So you have to make sure that you search your handbags before you leave work or else the cockroaches are going to keep you company at home.

"There are termites around, they said, referring to a case in which an attorney-at-law almost injured herself when a bench on which she was sitting broke. It was then discovered that termites had not only invaded the bench, but other sections of the courtroom".

And then, "(T)here are always long delays finding suitable courtrooms to try civil cases leaving litigants and attorneys-at-law frustrated".

Confronted by this ugly, intolerable condition experienced by Supreme Court staff, symptomatic of the court system islandwide, how on Earth, Minister Chuck, do you hold out to our people, your employers, the phoney prospect of Jamaicans having a local final appeal court?

Why does the Jamaica Labour Party leadership turn their face against Jamaica acceding to the state-of-the-art regional final court to which Jamaica contributed the princely sum of US$27M towards its establishment and proper functioning thereafter?

Colonial governors, having at their 1947 Bridgetown, Barbados meeting considered indepth the paucity of resources available in each of these small British Caribbean territories, made the historic recommendation, inter alia, that with our common heritage, a regional final appeal court was the matchless solution.

That recommendation, buttressed by studied, sage encouragement from the regional barristers, came in 1970 to be recorded as the first policy decision for amendment of our Independence Constitution, beginning the full decolonisation process. Surely, you proudly recall that landmark decision of the Hugh Shearer-led JLP Administration.

Five of our regional partners have embraced the subsequently created Caribbean Court of Justice as their final court and have reported no complaints whatsoever. Yet, the JLP leadership, with Jamaica bereft of that experience, engage in "finding fault" from a distance.

In a poll conducted late last year, some 60% of Jamaicans were found to positively support moving to the regional court, for obvious reasons, including lack of access to the Privy Council and unaffordability, among equaĺly important impediments.

Why does this JLP government, unapologetic, refusing to "let our people go", insist on languishing among the 23% who, according to the same poll, wish for us to remain wedded to the court of the erstwhile coloniser?

The Archbishop of Canterbury, last week on Jamaican soil, publicly acknowledged the "sinful treatment" of our forbears, victims of the African slave trade.

Today, Minister Chuck, after six decades of political independence, the rulers in our own government - shamelessly uncompassionate - pursue a sinful path, denying the majority of our citizens access to a court of last resort.

Evidently, the JLP leaders sleep well at nights, unfazed even by their unforgivable breach of the constitutional provisions regarding membership of the Upper Legislative Chamber, conspiring to have wouldbe senators sign undated resignation letters precisely for access to the court across the Atlantic to remain available only to the tiny fraction of our economically empowered citizens, a position that has endured for generations since 'Emancipation' over 190 years ago.

You leave the staff at the courts across the island bemused by the prospect of your proposed final court likely filled with termites and cockroaches, creating furnace-like 'inhumane, degrading' conditions at the pinnacle of the judicial structure.

This last, Minister Chuck! What reason - any reason at all - can you provide for your government's refusal to accept the policy frame put forward by the Opposition PNP for Jamaica, employing the proper legal and constitutional channels, to delink from the monarchy and the monarch's Court at one and the same time?

Moreover, since proper preparation for the required referendum exercise to delink from the monarchy must occupy extended time, and delinking from the monarch's Court would immediately bring to our citizens long-denied, tangible privilege of access and more, why not, as a 62nd independence gesture, table the CCJ bills immediately upon the resumption of parliamentary sittings for the gift to take effect by the end of the fiscal year?

Sinfully however, the hard evidence is that you and your government colleagues, fixedly unrepentant, consider this too precious a gift to be enjoyed by your employers. Most of them by far, the Archbishop reminds, lest you forget, are descendants of those sinned-against brutally enslaved African forbears.

Still, the globally-acclaimed itinerant CCJ awaits, Minister Chuck!

AJ NICHOLSON

 Former Jamaican Justice Minister and Attorney General A. J. Nicholson is the author of the recently released book entitled "The Road Block:Jamaica's resistance to the Caribbean Court of Justice".