WITHOUT being optimistic for a response, I am today asking the following questions of Jamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and her Trinidad and Tobago colleague Kamla Persad-Bissessar:

Will either, or both, of the current two women prime ministers of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) be disposed to explaining to your respective citizenry and, by extension, others of Caricom, why your respective governments continue to delay access to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the countries’ final appeal court?

Are you aware that by so doing you could significantly help to influence other heads of government in this region to end the region’s lingering, old colonial relationship with Britain’s Judicial Committee of the Privy Council? The present scenario mocks the established concept of political sovereignty some half a century after Independence has come to both Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

As heads of government and leaders of respective ruling parties, both Simpson Miller and Persad-Bissessar are known to be quite dynamic in championing programmes and policies. These two prime ministers have, strangely, appeared to be less than forthcoming in their style and quality of advocacy for the CCJ and its replacement of the Privy Council as the final appeal court of Caricom member states. Other than, of course, Suriname and Haiti, which have historically different jurisprudence as ex-colonies of The Netherlands and France.

Come next month, on April 15, it will be 10 years since the ceremonial inauguration of the CCJ in Port of Spain in accordance with a historic unanimous decision by then heads of government of the community. Among them were Jamaica’s then prime minister and People’s National Party (PNP) leader Michael Manley (who subsequently passed away), and Basdeo Panday, then prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, as well as founding leader of the United National Congress (UNC).

In sharp contrast to the rigorous anti-CCJ politics that Prime Minister Simpson Miller faces from the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), her T&T counterpart, Persad-Bissessar, is virtually enjoying a free ride by the disinterest being demonstrated by the Opposition People’s National Movement under the leadership of Dr Keith Rowley.

Persad-Bissessar has not had to contend with a vitriolic anti-CCJ Opposition party in the JLP, nor the obstructionist tactics that have been displayed in some other jurisdictions, including from even leading legal luminaries and media commentators.

What’s more, it so happens that Persad-Bissessar could have paved the way as she served as attorney general in the then UNC-led Government — the first woman to hold the post — when arrangements were being finalised for the establishment of the CCJ.

Hence, a recurring, relevant question is: Why the failure on her part to press for a parliamentary vote on the CCJ as T&T’s final appeal court and delink from the Privy Council?.

The CCJ was financed by a US$100-million loan raised on the international money market by the Caribbean Development Bank so that it could become operational. However, the momentous initiative somehow got stuck in the proverbial mud with eight of a dozen eligible member states having trapped themselves with self-serving language that mocks their claim to be “free” of the vestiges of colonialism.

Ironically, among the eight are Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, the first two Caricom countries to sever the colonial relationship with Britain, but where successive PNP and JLP administrations in Kingston remain politically crippled by their own contradictory posturings to embrace the CCJ as Jamaica’s court of last resort.

Consequently, amid all the pathetic double-speak, particularly in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, involving not just politicians but also some leading legal and media minds, to date, only a quartet of Caricom countries have replaced Britain’s Privy Council as their final appellate institution.

Among them are: Barbados and Guyana — the first two to scuttle ties with Britain’s Privy Council in favour of the CCJ. Then Belize came on board last year, followed just recently by Dominica — first country of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States subregion to do so. I expect St Vincent and the Grenadines to do likewise, should Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves return to State power following new elections later this year.

Rickey Singh is a Barbados-based noted Caribbean journalist.