Mr Andrew Holness, the Opposition leader, has again signalled his intention to not support any move, at this time, for Jamaica to adopt the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as our final appeal court.

According to Mr Holness, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) bloc is not doing so well now, plus, we have big problems here in Jamaica to fix, chief among them the economy.

Let’s deal with those first, he told supporters and guests at the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP’s) 71st Annual Conference on Sunday.

We can’t argue with Mr Holness on the need to attend to the economy. After all, we see the debilitating effects of its weakness every day.

However, we can’t share his view that the economic problems must be corrected first before we embrace the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ.

We have not seen or heard anything from the JLP that would cause us to review our conviction that one of the problems the party faces on this issue is the fact that it took such a strong position against the CCJ during its previous stint in Opposition that it would lose face were it to now embrace the court in its totality.

We reiterate that the JLP’s position is less plausible because the CCJ has performed well, receiving kudos from legal luminaries, among them Justice Patrick Robinson, who sits on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and is a former president of that tribunal.

In fact, Justice Robinson’s election yesterday as a judge at the International Court of Justice has further strengthened the position that this newspaper has long held that we have, among our own people in the Caribbean, the capacity and integrity to adjudicate on matters affecting us.

As we have argued in this space before, we had thought that after the Shanique Myrie ruling local critics of the CCJ would have had a rethink of their position, given the capacity displayed by the court to interpret the law and make a just ruling based on that analysis.

The question that those among us who remain sceptical of the CCJ should answer is why do they accept the court in its original jurisdiction, which empowers it to interpret and apply the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, but reject it as a court of last resort in civil and criminal matters?

We can’t emphasise enough the very clear messages sent from England that cases from the Caribbean are an unwelcome burden on the Privy Council.

People who keep abreast of legal and political matters will also remember that Lord Leonard Hoffman, in an address to the annual dinner of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago in October 2003, encouraged the Caribbean to establish its own final appeal.

“I do not underestimate the difficulty of creating a final court for the various Caribbean communities,” he said. “But I think that states which have so much in common in their history and values, which can even play cricket together, should be able to do so.”

He went even further: “We in London will do what we can to help, as we would, if in the end you decided to continue the present system. But my own view is that a court of your own is necessary if you are going to have the full benefit of what a final court can do to transform society in partnership with the other two branches of government.”

Lord Hoffman seems to have more faith in us, than do the CCJ critics.