ONE of the world’s most horrific manifestations of a country with an empty-minded leadership can be found right here in the CARICOM family of nations.
Many of these CARICOM countries have the British monarchy as their final receptacle of State power in the form of the Governor-General.
Does this have an explanation in psychology? Why this remains a mystery is because the former European empires have not been nice to their former colonies. Germany went into Namibia and perpetuated genocide. Yet Namibia received a literal pittance in aid compared to the billions Israel gets from Germany.
The imperialist nations of the world met among themselves and transformed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade into the World Trade Organisation. It was almost a death blow. All trade preferences given to CARICOM nations were now gone. Sugar and banana had to compete with super-wealthy countries that produce such products.
There was absolutely no reason for the former colonies to even tolerate their former colonisers, much less like them, because independence was symbolic and not real. The former empires locked the former colonies into a labyrinthian maze, where, from independence to 2026, they still control the economies of their former colonies.
For a beautiful outlay of this neo-colonial labyrinth, see the autobiography of Guyana’s former international scholar, Maurice Odle. What is sickening is that they not only control the economies but they also control the collective minds of the leadership of the post-colonial world.
The largest and most graphic manifestation of this mental slavery is the refusal of many CARICOM nations to make the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) their final appellate court.
In Jamaica and Trinidad, they prefer the Privy Council, situated in the UK. And who are or what is the Privy Council? There is no need for an elaborate description. The Privy Council consists of judges from Britain, the same judges that persecuted and prosecuted Julian Assange.
The Privy Council consists of the same judges that assigned long prison sentences recently to people convicted of association with a banned group named Palestine Action. The Privy Council consists of judges that approved the stripping of the citizenship by the British government of two Muslim girls born in the UK but were married to ISIS men in Syria.
This has to be a blatant miscarriage of justice. The normal route to go was to charge the two girls with acts of terrorism. Any citizen of any country can charge their nationals with acts of terrorism, even if those alleged crimes are committed on the high seas.
Even if the British Government was extremist in revoking the girls’ citizenship, it was an unconstitutional and illegal decision that the British courts should have struck down.
Are these the Privy Council judges that certain CARICOM heads believe have more integrity than our own CCJ judges? Throughout the Western world, judges have adopted a prosecutorial mentality once the charge has political content, and especially if the accused is Muslim. Are these the judges that certain CARICOM heads believe are better than our own CCJ justices?
At the moment, the CCJ is embroiled in a controversy that should now evaporate because the president of the CCJ, Justice Anderson, has handed down an elaborate and voluminous explanation.
It is comical how opposition personalities in Guyana are using the controversy for anti-government purposes. Do these people read what takes place in the world?
The recent CCJ controversy is a drop in the ocean to what takes place in the federal Supreme Court in the US. Any human in any part of the globe with a law degree that keeps abreast with Supreme Court decisions would know that the US Supreme Court is bordering on being disgraceful. What takes place in that court is not only repugnant but incredible and unbelievable.
In many judiciaries around the world, there are public disagreements among the members of the panel of appellate judges. The CCJ story is not new among national judiciaries, and certainly does not contain any elements that would undermine the integrity of the court. There is one dimension of this CCJ saga that needs to be analysed by Caribbean people.
There may be a judge that may have done the unthinkable, and by that callous act could affect Caribbean integration.
The CCJ, as Ruel Johnson so wisely observed last week on the Freddie Kissoon Show, is the only part of Caribbean integration where there is shared sovereignty among CARICOM nations.
The CCJ makes decisions for all CARICOM nations, whether at the lower level or appellate level. The email regarding the judge that had a grievance with the president of the court should have never been leaked. This could damage Caribbean integration, and the decent thing for the person who leaked it to do is to resign.

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.