IN a speech celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Jamaica Labour Party, Opposition Leader Edward Seaga compared the government’s support for the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to former Prime Minister Michael Manley’s 1970s flirtations with “socialism” and to aborted efforts at regional integration in the 1960s.

Both concepts were rejected by Jamaicans, said Seaga.

“On (our) 60th birthday, the Jamaica Labour Party is once again demonstrating its relentless opposition to the alien features which have embedded themselves in our national life,” Seaga said during a speech in May Pen on Sunday.

The PNP’s introduction of “alien” concepts into Jamaica’s political life is denying justice to ordinary Jamaicans, said Seaga, who pledged to oppose these efforts.

“We will fight for the legislative approval of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms which we initiated — not any other version which allows back door abuses of our rights,” said Seaga, adding that a referendum on the CCJ is necessary to reflect the will of Jamaicans.

Prime Minister PJ Patterson maintains a referendum is not legally required to establish the CCJ.

Recalling 60 years of Jamaica’s political history, Seaga credited the JLP with blocking the PNP from turning Jamaica into an “appendage” of the old Federation of the West Indies, which he said voters rejected in the 1960s. If Manley’s ideas had prevailed, Seaga said, Jamaica would now be extricating itself from “a confused, collapsing” socialist model if not for the JLP’s fierce opposition.

“In both of these landmark events, it was the Jamaica Labour Party that aroused and energized the national sentiments of the people and restored Jamaica to a nationalist path,” he said.

The JLP has vigorously opposed establishing the CCJ without first allowing the people to vote on the issue of whether to give up their right to appeals before the Judicial Committee of the UK-based Privy Council. The ruling party, which contends that the CCJ has to be up and running before citizens can vote on the matter, sees the CCJ as vital to economic integration and prosperity. And it insists it will afford Jamaicans better access to justice by replacing the Privy Council as a court of last appeal. Seaga has been skeptical on both counts.

During the church service, the Opposition Leader also noted that the JLP’s anniversary coincides with three days of bloody violence in West Kingston, between July 7-10, 2001.

Evoking the memory of “25 unfortunate ordinary people who were massacred by the security forces”, Seaga pledged to “never give up the struggle until there is one Jamaica with no second class citizens”.