GILLIAN LUCKY

Fi­nal­ly we are one step clos­er to em­brac­ing an en­ti­ty that for too long has been treat­ed as a ju­di­cial out­cast deemed un­wor­thy of cre­at­ing re­gion­al ju­rispru­dence. Over the years, calls were made from var­i­ous sec­tors to abol­ish the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil (PC) as our fi­nal court of ap­peal and re­place it with an in­dige­nous court that would com­prise the best le­gal minds in the Caribbean. That it has tak­en us 11 years since the agree­ment to es­tab­lish the CCJ and some sev­en years af­ter the CCJ in­au­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mo­ny to ac­cept this au­gust in­sti­tu­tion as some­thing de­serv­ing of pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence speaks vol­umes about our lack of self-es­teem. The con­cept of a re­gion­al court as our fi­nal court of ap­peal was dis­cussed decades ago with then le­gal lu­mi­nar­ies cham­pi­oning the cause for the sev­er­ance of the last rel­ic of our colo­nial past. Their dri­ve to es­tab­lish the CCJ was based on the recog­ni­tion that there ex­ist amongst us in­di­vid­u­als ca­pa­ble of con­sci­en­tious­ly, in­tel­li­gent­ly and im­par­tial­ly ad­min­is­ter­ing jus­tice in the crim­i­nal and civ­il are­nas with­out fear or favour, af­fec­tion or ill-will. Per­haps we treat too flip­pant­ly the ini­tia­tive and bril­liance of the found­ing fa­thers of the Caribbean, who, in their re­spec­tive ter­ri­to­ries, led the move­ment to in­de­pen­dence and some to re­pub­li­can­ism, as a sign of po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty.

If that gus­to has been sus­tained by those who re­placed those great lead­ers of the past, the CCJ would have been cel­e­brat­ing at least 30 years of ex­is­tence. The an­nounce­ment on Wednes­day by the Prime Min­is­ter that leg­is­la­tion will soon be laid in the Par- lia­ment to fa­cil­i­tate the CCJ as our coun­try's fi­nal crim­i­nal court has been re­ceived with over­whelm­ing sup­port and ac­cla­ma­tion. The sig­nif­i­cance of the cel­e­bra­tion of our 50th year since gain­ing in­de­pen­dence is cer­tain­ly en­hanced by the mean­ing­ful move to take our ju­rispru­dence to the next lev­el. The act­ing Chief Jus­tice, Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo, apt­ly de­scribed the de­ci­sion as "a step to­wards fi­nal­ly cre­at­ing a re­gion­al ju­rispru­dence." At­tor­neys in the ma­jor­i­ty across the board feel the ex­cite­ment about a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment in the le­gal sys­tem. Our coun­try, ad­mit­ted­ly not ex­clu­sive­ly, and cer­tain­ly not on the mat­ter of the ac­cep­tance of the CCJ as the fi­nal ap­pel­late court, has been a leader in the re­gion and so it is ex­pect­ed that oth­er Caribbean coun­tries may fol­low in the steps of those who are rel­a­tive late­com­ers like our­selves to make the CCJ dream, a ju­rispru­den­tial re­al­i­ty. And while the ac­co­lades and best wish­es con­tin­ue to pour in for those who will be re­spon­si­ble for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the change, let us re­mem­ber those who first plant­ed the seed for a re­gion­al ap­pel­late court. One such in­di­vid­ual is the first pres­i­dent of the CCJ, a re­tired Chief Jus­tice of T&T, Michael de la Bas-tide, who is in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­knowl­edged as a le­gal lu­mi­nary who con­tin­ues to in­spire young pro­fes­sion­als and share his vast knowl­edge and ex­per­tise in the law. More than 35 years ago, this in­tel­lec­tu­al gi­ant stat­ed on pub­lic record that the CCJ was long over­due and his com­mit­ment to the es­tab­lish­ment and ac­cep­tance of a CCJ re­mained un­yield­ing over the years.

That Jus­tice de la Bastide is alive to wit­ness this long over­due move to abol­ish the PC (al­though not in its en­tire­ty) is a well-de­served gift for one who has giv­en his life to the law. It is hoped that his com­ments on the re­cent an­nounce­ment will not fall on deaf ears and that his con­cerns will be giv­en mean­ing­ful con­sid­er­a­tion. While the bill to ef­fect the change is be­ing draft­ed, there should be a time­ly launch of an in­tense and com­pre­hen­sive cam­paign to ed­u­cate cit­i­zens about the role and func­tion of the CCJ. The lay­man would have many ques­tions de­serv­ing of ex­pla­na­tion about the process to be adopt­ed and pro­ce­dure to be fol­lowed in re­la­tion to crim­i­nal ap­peals to be heard by the CCJ. One im­por­tant mat­ter would be whether the abo­li­tion of crim­i­nal ap­peals to the PC would en­able the rein­tro­duc­tion of the death pe­nal-ty. The an­swer is-not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be­cause con­sti­tu­tion­al is­sues still must be ad­dressed. What is ex­pect­ed, how­ev­er, is a more bal­anced and re­al­is­tic ap­proach by the CCJ, when de­cid­ing on the sub­ject. It must al­so be ap­pre­ci­at­ed that the ac­cep­tance of the CCJ as the fi­nal ap­pel­late court for crim­i­nal mat­ters does not mean that cur­rent prece­dent set by the PC is no longer valid be­cause un­til the CCJ gives a de­ci­sion to the con­trary, the ex­ist­ing law re­mains bind­ing. I com­mend the Prime Min­is­ter for bring­ing us clos­er to the CCJ. I re­spect­ful­ly add that noth­ing should be said or done that would sug­gest any risk of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence or mon­i­tor­ing by the Ex­ec­u­tive in the de­ci­sion mak­ing of the court. The sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers re­mains a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple in our democ­ra­cy and one which must be rig­or­ous­ly re­spect­ed by all.