With the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ Bills scheduled to be tabled in the Senate today, the eyes of the nation will now be on the Upper House as the debate on this most important and contentious issue begins.

Much has been said about replacing the Judicial Committee of the United Kingdom Privy Council with the CCJ as Jamaica’s final court in relation to criminal matters.

Proponents have put forward the arguments that the Privy Council is the last vestige of colonialism and as such should be removed. They have also pointed to comments in judicial circles in England suggesting that it is time that former colonies handle their own legal matters completely.

Opponents of the CCJ have argued that the Privy Council is not swayed by local politics during its deliberations on cases brought before it. They have also insisted that a decision of such fundamental importance needs to be made by the voters in a referendum.

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 earlier this year, we are increasingly worried about dispensing with the Privy Council at this point in time.

The St Kitts matter involved an attempt by the then Government to change electoral boundaries a month before general elections.

The then Opposition took the matter to court and it ended up at the Privy Council, which ruled that the election must be conducted using the existing boundaries.

That decision did not please the prime minister at the time, Mr 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.

As we pointed out before in this space, Mr Douglas may have had good reason to say that. 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, suggested that there was general agreement among the people of St Kitts and Nevis with the Privy Council ruling.

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

That suspicion will continue to weigh heavily on people’s minds, especially if a decision as important as placing the Privy Council with a regional court is left only to politicians.

While we acknowledge that the members of the lower House are representatives of the people, we are not aware that they have engaged their constituents on this issue.

Last week, what we saw from them was a vote along party lines, which amounts to mere political loyalty, rather than a reflection of thinking of the people who will be most affected by this decision.

Against that background, the most logical step to take is to put this issue to a referendum.

That, we believe, will settle the question and, most likely, end the controversy.