-disturbing ‘lyrics’ from J’ca, T&T PMs
THE dozen Caribbean Community governments involved with the jurisdiction of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) have been collectively spending millions of dollars annually to honour a debt obligation incurred under a US$100M loan agreement with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to operationalise the regional court seven years ago. Whether or not they have already accessed the CCJ as their final court of appeal, but have signed on to its original jurisdiction as a trade court to settle disputes arising from arrangements under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), these governments are committed to making regular debt payments for the US$100M secured by the CDB. Such payments are expected to be completed by 2014.
Since its inauguration in April 2005 in Port-of-Spain, where it is headquartered, just Barbados and Guyana had accessed the CCJ as their final appeal court, having ditched, at different periods, the Privy Council.
Last year, they were joined by Belize to also recognise both the CCJ’s original jurisdiction as a trade court, as well as a final appeal court.
The current government in Grenada has signalled willingness to have a referendum on the CCJ as its final appeal court, to coincide with the next general election (due in 2013) — thanks partly to the vigorous advocacy of Dr Francis Alexis, a former UWI law lecturer and Attorney General of a different political dispensation.
For its part, the bar association of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) has agreed to a resolution for member countries of that sub-region replacing the Privy Council with the CCJ as their final appeal court.

SHARP CONTRAST
In sharp contrast, both the Prime Ministers of Jamaica (Bruce Golding) and Trinidad and Tobago (Kamla Persad-Bissessar) have been ignoring calls to sever the colonial link with the Privy Council, and access the CCJ as their appeal court of last resort.
Instead, they have been singing from the same page about the likely establishment of their own final national appeal court. This  intention has not only provoked lamentations from members of the region’s legal fraternity, among them retired judges, and social commentators in their own jurisdictions, but  has outraged the distinguished retiring CCJ President, Sir Michael de la Bastide.
The former long-serving Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago, a most respected legal luminary of the Caribbean, has not only shot down as unnecessary and counter-productive the suggestion of either Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago setting up a final national appeal court, instead of accessing the CCJ as their court of last resort.
Michael de la Bastide was blunt in his warning: “It will be a regional catastrophe if CARICOM countries were to allow the CCJ to fail because of under-utilisation of its appellate jurisdiction…”
Tough talk, telling it as it is, at a tough time in our post-independence history, when a seemingly low level of nationalism, and narrow concept of sovereignty threatens the survival of the CCJ — our answer to cutting the colonial apron string of Britain’s Privy Council.
The deliberations over a final regional appellate institution have been ongoing for at least two decades BEFORE the birth of the CCJ in 2005, and the voicing of muddled expressions, first in Trinidad and Tobago, and then in Jamaica, about the possible preference of a final national appeal court to replace the Privy Council, rather than accessing the CCJ.
In the circumstances, it is understandable why the lyrics of Prime Ministers Golding and Persad-Bissessar about ignoring the CCJ, at this time, as a final appellate court, could be viewed as provocative, even for those CARICOM member countries who are still to make a reality of their expressed commitment to part company with the Privy Council in favour of the CCJ.

RAY OF HOPE?
Nevertheless, if all goes well, there may yet be cause for hope for a likely change, with Prime Minister Golding singing differently from another page on the CCJ.
In reporting on last Tuesday’s bi-partisan approval by the House of Representatives of a new Charter of Rights Bill (which has been the subject of debates for some two decades), the Jamaica Observer noted that the government and parliamentary opposition have set a June 30 deadline for reaching a consensus on the CCJ as Jamaica’s final appeal court.
The optimistic view is that there may have been a “political understanding” that once the Charter of Rights Bill secures the required two-thirds majority (which meant bi-partisan support in the 60-member House of Representatives), a mood swing could occur to influence movement in favour of Jamaica cutting the inherited colonial link with the Privy Council in preference for the CCJ as its final appellate court.
Having been instrumental in laying the basis for the Charter of Rights Bill, the People’s National Party’s leader, Portia Simpson-Miller, had no problems in ensuring bi-partisan parliamentary support for the legislation.
Now that this has occurred, and since the PNP has at all times been in support of the CCJ, a ‘consensus’ at the proposed June 30 meeting between Golding and Simpson-Miller could only mean that the Prime Minister and his government may be ready to access the regional court as Jamaica’s final appellate institution.
Such a development could, hopefully, also contribute to a change in mood in Trinidad and Tobago, where Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar continues to telegraph quite negative signals about her government’s preference to retain the Privy Council.
Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago currently contribute annually, approximately US$3.07 million and US$3.05 million respectively in debt payment obligations to the CDB for the CCJ.
A relevant question, therefore, is: Why the governments in Kingston and Port-of-Spain maintain payment commitment for, and adhere to, the original jurisdiction of the CCJ as a trade court in dispute settlements, but are yet to signal a positive note to break the colonial yoke of dependence on the jurisdiction of the Privy Council?
The most recent statement by Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar that her government  was in “no rush” to end the relationship with the Privy Council as Trinidad and Tobago’s final appeal court, is a sad commentary on the concept of sovereignty in a CARICOM state that, like Jamaica, has been independent from Britain since 1962.