Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley placed the is­sue of T&T’s re­la­tion­ship with the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil square­ly back on the front burn­er of pub­lic dis­course, when he com­pared the fail­ure of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress to sup­port lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form with the par­ty’s in­sis­tence that T&T must main­tain the Privy Coun­cil as its fi­nal court of ap­peal.

In words that are very like­ly to be prophet­ic, he said “One of these days, some British prime min­is­ter, not very far away, will kick us out of the Privy Coun­cil. I hope I will be around then to find out where we are go­ing to go when the British tell us ‘time to go home’.”

While the process of dis­en­gage­ment would cer­tain­ly not in­volve kick­ing, “log­ic sug­gests that re­plac­ing the Privy Coun­cil with the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice is not a ques­tion of whether – but when,” ac­cord­ing to Richard Clay­ton, a British KC.

And it is clear the process of cut­ting the um­bil­i­cal cord that at­tach­es the ju­di­cia­ries of some Caribbean coun­tries to the Privy Coun­cil will have to come from the British.

That is be­cause T&T’s Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion, at sec­tion 109, makes ap­peals to the Privy Coun­cil a right in some cas­es and in oth­ers hap­pens with the leave of the T&T Court of Ap­peal.

The amend­ment of sec­tion 109 re­quires the vote of not less than 75 per cent of the 41 Mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (31 MPs), and not less than 66.6 per cent of the 31 mem­bers of the Up­per House (20 Sen­a­tors).

Giv­en the sharp di­vi­sions in T&T’s pol­i­tics, get­ting 31 MPs to vote on end­ing the right to ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil would be close to im­pos­si­ble, with­out Her­culean ef­forts on both sides to find con­sen­sus on this is­sue.

Oth­er Caribbean coun­tries that are hold­ing on­to the Privy Coun­cil re­quire ref­er­en­da to end the ju­di­cial re­la­tion­ship. The cit­i­zens of Grena­da and An­tigua vot­ed to keep the Privy Coun­cil in No­vem­ber 2018, while Vin­cen­tians vot­ed sim­i­lar­ly in 2009.

For T&T, the rea­sons in favour of end­ing the re­la­tion­ship with the Privy Coun­cil in its ap­pel­late ju­ris­dic­tion are very clear:

• Hav­ing be­come a Re­pub­lic in 1976, ac­ced­ing to the CCJ in its ap­pel­late ju­ris­dic­tion would fi­nal­ly break T&T’s last shack­le of colo­nial­ism;

• It would re­ject the dan­ger­ous lack of self-be­lief that the peo­ple of this coun­try can ad­dress all of its is­sues with­out the need for some ex­ter­nal body;

• Ap­peals to the CCJ are quick­er and less cost­ly than ap­peals to the Privy Coun­cil;

• Even the most fer­vent Privy Coun­cil re­ten­tion­ists would agree that the qual­i­ty of ju­rispru­dence from the CCJ is on par with, and in some cas­es, ex­ceeds that of the Lon­don-based fi­nal court;

• The judges of the CCJ are cho­sen by the Re­gion­al Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion, an in­de­pen­dent body;

• The judges of the CCJ are in­su­lat­ed from po­lit­i­cal pres­sure from gov­ern­ments or vest­ed in­ter­ests be­cause of the es­tab­lish­ment of the CCJ Trust Fund, which was vest­ed with US$100 mil­lion in 2005, which en­ables the ex­pen­di­tures of the Court to be fi­nanced by in­come from the Fund.

All of these fac­tors in favour of end­ing the re­la­tion­ship with the Privy Coun­cil would come to naught if the Op­po­si­tion is not con­vinced it would not be in T&T’s in­ter­est to wait on the British to dis­en­gage.

If the British cared about its long-term in­ter­ests with those Caribbean coun­tries that re­tain the Privy Coun­cil, how­ev­er, it would re­alise that end­ing the re­la­tion­ship would be best for all con­cerned.