HERE are the words of former Prime Minister of Trinidad less than a day after he demitted office: “What really rots my gut is that I have to also swallow that the highest court of this land is in London at the Privy Council and if you have to go to the Privy Council, you have to go there by way of some arrangements they make for you. Do you really feel independent? Where your highest court is in a foreign country …. We should get out of the Privy Council and get to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). Trinidad and Tobago must complete its independence and get the hell out of the Privy Council”
Could you have any respect for a leader who made those words of Monday, March 17, 2025? You should not. And he does not deserve even an ounce of admiration. Here is why. Keith Rowley was Prime Minister of Trinidad for nine and a half years. And guess when Rowley discovered that Trinidad’s highest court is in the UK? – the day before he demitted office.

But there is more to know about Rowley that will rivet your soul. Guess what was the issue Rowley was ranting about when he denounced the Privy Council (PC)?
The new travel restriction imposed by the UK on Trinidad – visa requirement. The logical and commonsensical question to ask is if there was no visa requirement would Rowley have discovered that the PC in the UK is Trinidad’s highest court.
I am going to be rude and say to you that you are a fool if you believe that Rowley would have gravitated towards the CCJ if the visa restriction was not there. Why did Rowley not move out of the PC two years after he became PM? Five years after he became PM? Nine years after he became PM even though

the head office of the CCJ is in Port-of-Spain? The answer is commonsensical. Rowley did not see the need to come out of the PC because he accepted that state of affairs.
Rowley has invited insults on himself by his sudden acceptance of the CCJ because people will ridicule him and ask why he didn’t pull out of the PC when he was PM for nine years. So the question is: does Rowley expect the new PM to do what he, Rowley, did not want to do for nine years?
Will the new PM, Mr. Stuart Young, pull out of the PC? The answer is no. The main elites in the two major parties in Jamaica and Trinidad respectively, do not want their countries to come out of the PC. This is a remnant of the colonial mentality among the middle class in power in Caribbean society since Independence.

At the psychic level, the Caribbean middle class (with Guyana as an exception), believes that the British judges are of higher quality that their Caribbean counterparts. That is the answer for the retention of the PC. It is a serious colonial left-over in the country, Jamaica that gave us reggae and Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey, and Trinidad that gave us the steel pan, calypso and carnival.
How ironic, there is an image of Rowley back-balling during a carnival road march. He was Prime Minister then; he was participating in an indigenous artistry that Trinidad gave the world. But after his bacchanalian abandonment was over, he went back to his office and didn’t recall that Trinidad’s highest court was outside of Trinidad and inside the former colonial power.

There are still some Eastern Caribbean islands within CARICOM that are happy with the PC. Now that Trinidad’s outgoing PM had made a huge noise against the PC, will CARICOM see a wave of movement towards the CCJ? It may happen if Trinidad and Jamaica go in that direction. If they don’t, then those islands will remain within the CCJ.

It is quite a sad reflection on the failure of 60 years of Independence in the CARICOM family. But what is tragic is something Rowley mentioned when he was denouncing the PC. I quote him again: “If you think they have come around to treating us like equals, you have another thought coming, many of them still believe we are substandard. We are still inferior and they should treat us how they want to treat us.”

Poor Keith Rowley, he didn’t know this when he refused to accept the Russian COVID-19 vaccine for Trinidad because he thinks it was inferior to the American vaccine. We in Guyana took the Russian vaccine. My family took it and it saved our lives. Goodbye, Mr. Rowley, I hope I never hear about you again.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.