Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Sun­day re­ject­ed de­mands from the leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) for a ref­er­en­dum on a pro­pos­al to abol­ish crim­i­nal ap­peals to the Privy Coun­cil and re­place it with the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ). Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is al­so the Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter, made the call af­ter Sun­day's na­tion­al coun­cil meet­ing of the COP in Ch­agua­nas. The COP is one of the mem­ber units of the five-par­ty coali­tion. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in Par­lia­ment last Wednes­day her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment had de­cid­ed to abol­ish ap­peals to the Lon­don-based Privy Coun­cil and re­place it with the CCJ. She said leg­is­la­tion to im­ple­ment the change would be brought to Par­lia­ment. That leg­is­la­tion re­quires a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty vote to be ap­proved as it will vary from the T&T Con­sti­tu­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, be­fore the an­nounce­ment, had said that a ref­er­en­dum must be held for T&T to adopt the CCJ as its fi­nal court of ap­peal. In her state­ment on Sun­day evening, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "It was nev­er a for­mal stat­ed pol­i­cy nor agreed plat­form of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship that a ref­er­en­dum be held pri­or to a de­ci­sion on the CCJ, so no is­sue aris­es." The state­ment added: "In­deed, our Con­sti­tu­tion and laws make no pro­vi­sion for such a mea­sure which would in it­self re­quire a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment that can fa­cil­i­tate the hold­ing of a ref­er­en­dum." Per­sad-Bisses­sar was crit­i­cal of Ra­mad­har's pub­lic call for the ref­er­en­dum. "As re­gards the state­ment by the COP that a ref­er­en­dum should be held be­fore any de­ci­sion is tak­en re­gard­ing the CCJ, such mat­ters are ide­al­ly suit­ed for dis­cus­sion at the lev­el of the Cab­i­net," the PM added.

She said her an­nounce­ment of the move to ac­cept the CCJ as T&T's fi­nal court of ap­peal had found favour in many quar­ters. "It is one of the rare oc­ca­sions when con­grat­u­la­to­ry con­sen­sus is found," the PM's state­ment said. It added: "If, how­ev­er, one of our mem­ber par­ties dif­fers in its view, one has to ac­knowl­edge this but it does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly al­ter the Gov­ern­ment's po­si­tion." Ra­mad­har said on CNC 3 yes­ter­day his par­ty had no prob­lem with the move to the CCJ. He said the con­cern was what hap­pened with the mat­ter from an­nounce­ment to ac­cep­tance. He in­sist­ed the peo­ple should have a say in the mat­ter, via a ref­er­en­dum.