Lawyer wants local reparations suit heard at Int’l Crimes Court
Michael Lorne, the Jamaican lawyer who is suing the Queen of England, Governor-General Sir Howard Cooke, and Prime Minister P J Patterson for what he describes as perpetrating slavery and perpetuating neo-colonialism, wasn’t surprised at the expulsion of his case last Thursday.
In fact, a close look at the submissions supporting the suit, which was filed by way of an originating summons in February when the British Monarch visited Jamaica, suggests he never wanted to have the matter heard by any judge in the Supreme Court of Jamaica. For one of the first arguments that Lorne makes is that the case can’t fairly or properly be heard by any judge who took the oath of office pledging allegiance and loyalty to the Queen. That, he argues, rules them all out.
He also rules out all the judges who are members of lodges, on the same basis that the allegiance creates a conflict of interest that would make it impossible for them to be impartial.
“What we really want is for the case to be heard in the International Crimes Court, and the chances of being heard in that area are greater after all the local avenues of redress have been exhausted,” he told the Sunday Observer last week before leaving for Barbados to deliver an address on reparations at the African and African Descendants World Conference Against Racism.
That’s the only place he expects to be taken seriously, as the nature of the suit has too many complex, political and diplomatic repercussions for the Jamaican Government to handle, said Lorne, who was mandated to bring the suit by the almost century-old Marcus Garvey People’s Political Party (PPP) and the Ethiopian International Unification Committee (EIUC), which was founded in 1987 by Prince Dawit Makonen of Ethiopia.
“Make no mistake about it, reparations has a universal definition – atonement – in whatever form – for wrongs done,” Lorne said. “The list of successful reparations cases is very long. the survivors of the Holocaust are being compensated with money, the Maoris of New Zealand have gotten an apology. etc. However, as with most things, it takes on a totally different meaning as soon as the Black Man, the Negro, the African descendant, is mentioned. It becomes ‘ludicrous’.”
Despite the cynicism fed by his 25 years of research on the reparations issue, Lorne believes that the issues in his suit will be resolved some day.
Other lawyers share his view. However, some, like Clyde Williams, feel Lorne is going about it the wrong way.
“I believe in reparations, but I feel it should be dealt with at the state level, that is, from one state to another,” argued Williams. “If the issue is to be litigated, I think it would have to be brought as a class action – that is, one or more persons suing on behalf of a wider group – that would reap the benefits of success in whatever form. The first step would be to seek the leave of the Court to do so.”
Solicitor-General Michael Hylton, who opposed the action on behalf of the Government, used the same point to persuade Supreme Court judge Carl Marsh to strike Lorne’s suit out last week.
In fact, most of the arguments that Hylton used against the suit were based on methods of legal procedure rather than the substance of the suit.
This, according to one lawyer who requested anonymity, was unfortunate.
“If the action had been properly brought, that is, a class action with well-defined causes, we would have been in a better position to view and talk about the Court’s attitude to the reparations issue. I mean, some substance of it would have drawn some sort of judicial reaction. As is, the most I expect., and the most the judge is obliged to provide in the written judgement, is to be told what we already know or are supposed to know about legal procedure,” he said.
Lorne filed the 25-point claim in his own name and that of Williams Holmes and George Latty on behalf of ‘the several African-Jamaicans being descendants of former slaves of the British subjects’. The document condemns, among other things:
. the rape of Africans to breed Mulattoes and half castes;
. the banning of Obeah, Polygamy and other African traditions and practices;
. the genocide of Africans to facilitate the slave trade;
. the classification of Africans as non-humans by the ruling authorities of the time; and
. the recently changed oath of allegiance to the Queen.
One of his more specific complaints is in relation to 4,500 acres of land in Luidas Vale, St Catherine.
“In 1663, the English governor gave Juan de Bolas and 150 of his followers 30 acres of land in Luidas Vale, St Catherine each. In the 1680s, this was illegally and wrongfully confiscated,” Lorne said.
It was not immediately clear if Lorne intended to challenge the dismissal of his suit in the local appellate court or redraft the suit to meet Hylton’s arguments and seek the Supreme Court’s leave to have it entertained as a class action, as he was not available to comment in the wake of Thursday’s decision.