The right to choose
The Jamaica Observer editorial writers, who have been given basket to carry water, now pronounce that, for them, no reliance can be placed on Justice Seymour Panton to “lecture on” Jamaica’s judicial system and proceed to seize upon a couple brief comments of Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn and Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Taylor to support their contention.
And, no doubt, one can successfully wager that both Llewellyn and Taylor would appreciate and embrace the erudite observations of the knowledgeable and experienced Justice Panton.
The editorial writers continue to repeat the odd, awkward suggestion that Jamaica “cannot think of leaving the Privy Council before fixing its limping justice system”.
The natural inference from their stance is that, in their view, the near 50 former colonies that have moved on from the British institution must have possessed pristine – and certainly not limping – justice systems before taking that step, or if their systems were not in such a privileged position, they erred badly in leaving the Uk-based court.
Across the entire Commonwealth, it is only in the Observer editorial space that such an obviously untenable position has ever been put forward publicly.
The Observer editorial writers also continue with that internally contradictory suggestion that foreign investors will not favour Jamaica if we leave the Privy Council.
It is, of course, an old, unsustainable argument that has long been debunked. One need look no further than the case of Jamaica’s sister Caricom territories which have acceded to the Caribbean Court of Justice. Any word of foreign investors, including Jamaican entrepreneurs, shunning Belize, Dominica, Barbados, and Guyana?
Now, the Observer is constitutionally entitled to hold to the position that Jamaica should remain with the Privy Council. The problem is that, though their right to choose that or any other position must at all times be vigorously defended, the position which they have adopted is absolutely indefensible.
There is the shame-inducing position alone, among other unanswerable facts, that the British authorities at the highest level have time and again publicly declared their strong preference that Caribbean states, including Jamaica, should stop making use of the “judicial time of their most senior judiciary”.
And, in any event, the British court has never been accessible or affordable to the vast majority of Jamaicans for almost
200 years. So, at the highest judicial level, Jamaica continues limping along, inaccessible, unaffordable, and unwelcome.
Therein lies the dilemma for the editorial writers, who are, therefore, forced to invent and seek to rely on spurious reasoning and suggestions in support of the unsupportable position adopted by the Observer.
They have, then, like the mythical Sisyphus, been saddled with a thoroughly impossible task. Remarkably, as Justice Panton gently reminded, it was the choice of the Observer not to remain on the right side, the fair side, of access to justice!
AJ Nicholson is a former Member of Parliament, senator, and Cabinet minister.