Dear Editor,

I was profoundly attracted to and in full concurrence with your editorial in the Observer of November 30 “As we get ready for the CCJ”. I am compelled to offer my admiration for the general succinct yet comprehensive piece which, by the way, is a touchstone feature of your editorials. I must confess that in particular with criminal matters, I am very concerned when decisions by our Court of Appeal are reversed by the law lords on a point of law because it is one more example of a life rescued from the brink of irreversible ruination. Nevertheless, in commercial or civil matters, reversals do cause me concern but are not usually a case of life or death.

Personally, I am not worried about the quality of Caribbean judges, who I believe to be among the world’s brightest jurists. Indeed, the unequivocal majority of cases that make it to the Privy Council are dismissed and the Court of Appeal’s reasoning affirmed as unassailable.

However, this is of little comfort to those who have been on the wrong end of those Court of Appeal decisions. But having regard to the fallibility and imperfection of human nature, all final appellate tribunals have reached perverse decisions that are at best egregious. The case forthright in my mind is the American case of Dred Scott which, among other things, endorsed slavery in the US and has been credited by historians as one of the key factors that led to the American Civil War which lasted for five years. Such is the nature of bad decisions. Even now, the lurid nature of Dred Scott and its attendant consequences for American jurisprudence is called upon by dissenting judges who wish to impugn the reasoning of the majority – Justice Scalia has intimated this more than once.

Nevertheless, the American justice system is now admired worldwide and hailed as one of the best, yet it has taken them over 300 years to get there. As I write, it is Independence Day in Barbados, which is a pointed reminder that no Commonwealth Caribbean state has been independent for 50 years. By comparison our justice system is far more credible and mature for a move that we have delayed for far too long. Because if the argument is that we will eventually have our final appellate court closer to home, there is no better time than now. The converse that we would interminably be tied to the UK cannot be entertained. While decisions might be perceived as wrong from time to time, this is an inevitable consequence and is not peculiar to Caribbean jurisprudence.