Jamaica’s Margarette Macaulay, a formidable voice in the human rights, women’s rights and children’s rights lobbies for most of her 32 years in legal practice, is now a judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Elected to the position in June 2006 by the General Assembly of the Organisation of American States, Macaulay has the distinction of being the first Jamaican woman to sit on the seven-member court, and will serve for six years in the first instance.

For the legal mind, who has been in private practice since coming to Jamaica in 1974, the appointment came at the right time.

“I’m pleased, really happy because I’m in the twilight of my professional life and it is good to be in an institution which tries to protect the human rights of persons, and I hope to go through the term,” she said, adding that her intention is to continue for a second term.”

Macaulay, who completed her first session in February when the court sat in Costa Rica, said the experience was not

a walkover.

“It was extremely interesting, but taxing for somebody from our kind of jurisdiction because our courts don’t sit as long, they sit 9:00 am to 7:00 pm with a two-hour break,” she shared.

During the two-week period she saw the whole gamut.

“The cases involved domestic loss of life, massacres which occurred in some of the countries which come to light afterwards, people who disappeared or instances where state agents like the police commit violence against an individual or a family or a community and they die or they are injured or their property is taken from them,” she said.

While the cases were poles apart from her Jamaican case experience, Macaulay, who also writes a weekly column addressing individual rights for the Observer’s allwoman magazine, said she was not out of her depth.

“No, strangely enough. I read the previous decisions of the court, which are extremely long, but the principles of law are basically the same and I am au fait with international human rights laws, so there was really nothing strange to me in that regard,” she said, adding that there was not much that she found shocking in the details either.

“I know what is happening because I have been attending conferences and I have been a part of the human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights fights over the years, so it didn’t shock me; rather than shock, I was happy that there was an arena where these things could be aired and compensation given to the parties,” she told the Sunday Observer.

Jamaica, Macaulay recommended, should become a party to the court so that “individuals or organisations acting on behalf of individuals can take matters to the court instead of only to the commission, as they do now. It would be a good thing for Jamaican citizens”.

She is far from satisfied with the explanation given as to why Jamaica was not a party to the court.

“I was told that because of Jamaica’s position on hanging, which was contrary to the principles of the court, it had not ratified the Treaty; but Jamaica can chose to reserve on that and still be a member of the court, as in the case of Barbados,” she noted.

In the meantime, she is hoping that the presence of three women on the court will make some changes for the better.

“I am hoping that issues which deal particularly with women being disadvantaged will come to the fore and will be dealt with,” said Macaulay. “I think we should make some changes.”

She wants to bring the experience to bear on the

Jamaican landscape.

“I hope I will be able to inject human rights principles in our national law,” she said. “Periodically, I have gone to conferences set up for judges and the intent of those conferences was to convince common law judges to apply human rights principles in their judgements. It’s not a new thing that I would be trying, but I just hope we can succeed.”

Commenting on the ongoing debate on the Offences Against the Person Act, Macaulay said she is in favour of the recent decision to abandon a provision in the Bill requiring the consent of the director of public prosecutions to go ahead with prosecutions for marital rape.

“I have thousands of signatures collected from 1995 supporting this,” she said. “It is good that the committee seems to have concluded that it is unnecessary, because it is clearly continuing the paternalistic, discriminatory attitude towards married women.”

In the meantime, however, she said there are several offences in the Act which the Bill did not seek to deal with.

“I think those ought to be dealt with because I don’t know when next they are going to bring those amendments,” said Macaulay. “This bill was tabled in 1995 and it’s only now that it is being dealt with.”

Arguing that the language used should be relevant, Macaulay gave as examples words such as ‘imbecile’, ‘brothels’, ‘unnatural sexual acts’ and ‘buggery’ to support her point.

“Say what it is so that people will understand by the statement of the offence what it is,” she said. “The law has to be clear and understandable by every citizen, because ignorance of the law is no defence.”

Macaulay is also not happy with the method used to

appoint judges.

“I don’t think I have seriously considered it in the national arena, and I probably haven’t because there are not many members of the judiciary in Jamaica who are from the private bar because of the manner of appointment of judges,” she said.

“Generally, most of them are from the public bar or from the magistrate’s courts. I never know when there is a vacancy and most of my colleagues in private practice will tell you the same, and so even if you are interested you wouldn’t really know when to apply,” she explained.

“It’s not good. I think the appointment of judges should be wide and broad-based; it should not only encompass practitioners and people from the public bar, but also people from academia who have the knowledge and expertise needed in certain types of cases. If you look at the appointments to the Caribbean Court of Justice there are persons from academia,” she noted, adding, “it should be a good mix for the highest level of the administration of justice, I think”.

Macaulay paid tribute to the contribution of her late husband, Berthan Macaulay QC, to her career.

She said the high point in her career was her first appearance before the United Kingdom Privy Council where Berthan, a leading light in the judiciary, piloted her.

“We succeeded. It was in early 1975, it was a criminal case, and my late husband led me and I was so nervous. He was a brilliant lawyer and I will forever be grateful to him,” she reminisced.

She has been mostly a defence lawyer in criminal cases, and has appeared in other courts in a number of countries and before the Privy Council several times.

Even though private practice has not made her ‘rich’ and the recent appointment is not a salaried position, Macaulay said she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I can’t imagine my life just practising law and not doing the right stuff, I couldn’t live that way,” she said.