Privy Council ties national disgrace

Below is an edited version of a speech delivered as part of the Institute of Jamaica’s annual cultural heritage series ‘Salute to the Parish’ on November 29. I LOOK forward to the day when a solid Hanoverian, preferably a Rusean, will make it to Gordon House. I cannot recall Hanover ever having a Cabinet minister. It is high time for there to be such a person who would no doubt help to lift the standing of the parish. I am sure there are bright, honest, hardworking, young Hanoverians who would add quality to the Cabinet of this country.

This brings me to the question of governance. At Rusea’s, in my time, we took great interest in the world around us, and we were strong on nation-building. That spirit has not left us.

Our country has been professing for the past 56 years that it is an independent country. I say that is not so. We are still under the headship and leadership of the United Kingdom. We have a document called a Constitution. It spells it out quite clearly. It says that the executive authority of Jamaica is vested in Her Majesty. And in relation to the courts, it says that the final word comes from Her Majesty in Council.

So, the Queen rules this country, but she has delegated some people here to take the blame when things go wrong, because the Queen can do no wrong. That is the constitutional position.

There is a strange situation, though, that if you want to see Her Majesty, you have to apply for a visa and pay for it. There was a time when persons who wished to go to the United Kingdom simply bought a ticket and took the plane or boat.

As time passed, we have been made to pay larger and larger sums for a visa, and there is no guarantee you are going to get it. So, if you have a case before Her Majesty in Council, you may not get a chance to go there if you wish to argue your case or to hear it being argued. That is fact, not fiction.

There is a funny situation, however. Former colonies such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand have never needed to get a visa. And New Zealand, by a simple majority, abolished appeals to Her Majesty in Council in 2004. Although they have abolished such appeals, they can go to the United Kingdom freely.

We who have not abolished such appeals have to scrounge for a visa. The whole thing is laughable. Our leaders should be ashamed of the situation. Is it that we have no pride, no shame?

We who have sent and are sending judges to other countries, we who have teachers, craftsmen, artists, musicians, labourers, doctors, engineers, scientists of all sorts all over the world. We, with such a wealth of honest, hard-working talent dispersed all over the globe, we still feel the United Kingdom should settle our court issues and rule our executive.

WRONG APPROACH

There was a time when certain political figures were all for the removal of the Privy Council from our affairs. There was a change of political fortunes, and then those very persons turned against the idea. That is a wrong approach to governance.

Our national heroes, Sir Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley, never intended for us to be forever with the Privy Council. They are bathing Heroes Park with their tears over the failure of the succeeding generations to take the final step into independence. It is a disgrace, if you ask me.

I was sitting beside Lord Hoffman, then of the Privy Council, at a conference in Montego Bay shortly after I became the president of our Court of Appeal. He said that he was unable to understand why Jamaica still sent cases to the Privy Council. Similar questions were asked by him a few years earlier of Trinidad and Tobago at a conference in Port-of-Spain.

In my humble view, our failure to complete our independence by removing the Privy Council is an indication of the survival of the freeness mentality, and is a clear display of an inferiority complex. The freeness aspect comes in when it is considered that years ago, some folks here were arguing that the Privy Council was good for us because it was free.

The inferiority complex comes in on the basis that some persons seem to feel that once it is decided by the British, it is okay, but if done by our own, it is not okay. If there is a feeling that the Privy Council does no wrong, and is the only vessel for justice for Jamaicans, I regret to say that such a feeling is reserved by the devil in a paradise that is fit for fools only.