Mr Wingrove George, the supervisor of elections in St Kitts and Nevis, still has questions to answer about his decision to withhold the results of the general election held in that twin-island state last Monday.

Mr George needs to be detailed in his explanation, given widespread speculation in the Caribbean about the reason for his action.

Thankfully, as we stated before in this space, civil order was maintained throughout the debacle created by Mr George’s decision. However, we reiterate that his decision was disgraceful and an embarrassment to the Caribbean Community, which has had a proud history of respecting democracy.

The election, while conducted peacefully, became shrouded in controversy when the former Government sought to adopt new electoral constituency boundaries a month before the vote.

The Opposition appropriately took the matter to court and it ended up at the London-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which ruled, a few days before the election, that the exercise must be conducted using the existing boundaries.

That decision, naturally, did not please former Prime Minister Denzil Douglas, who claimed that it was at variance with the mood of the ordinary man and woman on the streets of St Kitts and Nevis.

Mr Douglas may have had good reason to make that statement. However, we doubt that the mood of which he spoke was as widespread as he wanted us to believe. For we are not aware of any outpouring of dissent to the Privy Council ruling among the general populace of St Kitts and Nevis.

In fact, the result of the election, in which Mr Douglas and his party won only four of the 11 seats contested, suggests that there is general agreement among the people of St Kitts and Nevis with the Privy Council ruling.

That, we suspect, will strengthen the position of opponents of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), who have consistently argued that the law lords in London are not swayed by domestic politics.

It will be difficult for the proponents of the CCJ to convince people in the region that the decision of the court in St Kitts to support the electoral boundaries change was not influenced by political considerations.

If that was the case, then the credibility of the legal system is at risk.

We have, in the past, leaned towards supporting the idea of the CCJ, based on our very solid commitment to regionalism. But given developments, such as that in St Kitts and Nevis, we are increasingly worried about dispensing with the UK Privy Council at this point in time.

Until we are certain that we will have in place a legal superstructure that mirrors the confidence inspired by the Privy Council, untouchable by local politics, it would be foolhardy to make the CCJ our final appellate court.

Our wise ancestors used to say ‘tek sleep mark death’. The inexplicable rush to jettison the Privy Council in favour of a Caribbean court which is, at best, still a work in progress, could unravel what legal gains we have made in the region. This clearly is a case in which we must make haste slowly.