Minister Makes An Impassioned Plea For Jamaica To Join CCJ

KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Justice Minister Mark Golding has made an impassioned plea for “political consensus between the government and the Opposition” when the Senate begins debates on the legislation to adopt the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the island’s final court. The debate is scheduled to commence in the Upper House in mid October.

The three companion Bills were debated and passed earlier this year in the House of Representatives, where the Portia Simpson Miller Government enjoys the two-thirds majority needed to have them passed. The Opposition voted against all three Bills.

“There are many compelling reasons, more than 50 years after our independence, these three Bills should be passed by our Parliament with the required majorities…we have no reason to be bashful in making a strident call for the adoption of the CCJ as our highest Court. To the contrary, we do so with a sense of pride and urgency,” Golding said.

Golding, addressing the 4th Biennial Conference of the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO), which ends here on Saturday, said that the CCJ has built an excellent jurisprudential record over the first decade of its existence.

He said, that while the country admires and respects the eminent judges of the UK’s Privy Council, Jamaica’s current final appellate body, the judges of the CCJ are at least as capable and are better suited to the needs of Jamaicans.

“I say today to Jamaica’s eight Opposition Senators, that they should not etch their names forever on the wrong side of history. The Court of Appeal has, in the case arising out of the Opposition Leader’s use of pre-signed resignation letters, reiterated the constitutional requirement for Senators to exercise independent judgement on matters that come before them.”

“The ‘super-eight’ Opposition Senators must dig deep and do the right thing, and thereby ensure that, on this fundamental matter, the Bills pass with bipartisan support,” Golding told the conference that is also being attended by CCJ President Sir Dennis Byron and Justice Adrian Saunders.

Representatives from 25 countries in the region, as well as the United States and Mexico, are participating in the conference that is providing them with the opportunity, to discuss the effective and efficient delivery of justice within the region.

The CCJ was established in 2001 to replace the London-based Privy Council and while most of the Caribbean countries are signatories to its Original Jurisdiction, only Barbados, Guyana, Dominica and Belize are signatories to the court’s Appellate Jurisdiction.

The CCJ also functions as an international tribunal, interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs the regional integration movement.