Dear Editor,
We note that the Observer continues with the referendum mantra in relation to our acceding to the appellate jurisdiction of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). This kind of wisdom that has escaped, and has been shunned by all who have gone before us.
There are several unshakable reasons why not one of the 41 former British colonies that have abolished appeals to the Privy Council to subscribe to a new final court of appeal -- from Canada which started the process in 1935, to those on the continent of Africa, in Asia, Australasia, and on to Dominica here in the Caribbean in 2014 -- has ever used the referendum route to achieve that purpose.
The first reason is that a referendum is essentially a general election, with partisan political campaigning the axis on which it spins. No country that has been exposed to the Westminster system of government has wished that matters relating to their judiciary be exposed to the partisan political platform, for the irreversible harm that could be done to its system of the administration of justice.
They have invariably reasoned that it is not a question of not "trusting the people"; it is a matter of not trusting a referendum exercise to leave the judicial system unscathed.
And here we have the Observer editorial board seeking to place the future of our judicial system deeper into the cauldron of the next general election campaigning for representation in the House of Representatives. They want to take Jamaica where all before us have feared, with reason, to tread.
And there is yet another reason why no country has taken that route, and which sounds in logic: You cannot have a referendum, a possible outcome of which you do not have the power to implement or to prolong. If the vote is to remain with the Privy Council, the authority to have that mandate carried out lies in Whitehall, not in Kingston, as it never did in Ottawa, Accra, Delhi, Canberra, Belmopan, or Roseau.
My earnest encouragement to the Observer editorial board and all of us is simply to follow the ruling laid down by our highest court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, that what is now required is a two-thirds majority vote in our Senate to allow some 99 per cent of our citizens, at least the opportunity, like Shanique Myrie, to be able to pursue certain rights that they have been denied for almost 200 years.
Sophia Frazer-Binns
Attorney-at-law and Government Senator
Kingston 5
No referendum on CCJ, Observer
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We note that the Observer continues with the referendum mantra in relation to our acceding to the appellate jurisdiction of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). This kind of wisdom that has escaped, and has been shunned by all who have gone before us.
There are several unshakable reasons why not one of the 41 former British colonies that have abolished appeals to the Privy Council to subscribe to a new final court of appeal -- from Canada which started the process in 1935, to those on the continent of Africa, in Asia, Australasia, and on to Dominica here in the Caribbean in 2014 -- has ever used the referendum route to achieve that purpose.
The first reason is that a referendum is essentially a general election, with partisan political campaigning the axis on which it spins. No country that has been exposed to the Westminster system of government has wished that matters relating to their judiciary be exposed to the partisan political platform, for the irreversible harm that could be done to its system of the administration of justice.
They have invariably reasoned that it is not a question of not "trusting the people"; it is a matter of not trusting a referendum exercise to leave the judicial system unscathed.
And here we have the Observer editorial board seeking to place the future of our judicial system deeper into the cauldron of the next general election campaigning for representation in the House of Representatives. They want to take Jamaica where all before us have feared, with reason, to tread.
And there is yet another reason why no country has taken that route, and which sounds in logic: You cannot have a referendum, a possible outcome of which you do not have the power to implement or to prolong. If the vote is to remain with the Privy Council, the authority to have that mandate carried out lies in Whitehall, not in Kingston, as it never did in Ottawa, Accra, Delhi, Canberra, Belmopan, or Roseau.
My earnest encouragement to the Observer editorial board and all of us is simply to follow the ruling laid down by our highest court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, that what is now required is a two-thirds majority vote in our Senate to allow some 99 per cent of our citizens, at least the opportunity, like Shanique Myrie, to be able to pursue certain rights that they have been denied for almost 200 years.
Sophia Frazer-Binns
Attorney-at-law and Government Senator
Kingston 5
No referendum on CCJ, Observer
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