KINGSTON, Jamaica — Fifty-five Jamaican crew members aboard Royal Caribbean cruise line’s Adventure of the Seas vessel have retained the service of an attorney, OBSERVER ONLINE has been informed.

The attorney, Jennifer Housen, has since written to the Jamaican Government indicating same.

The crew members are among the 1,044 Jamaicans on-board the ship that is expected to arrive in Jamaican waters tomorrow.

However, the Jamaican Government has indicated that it had no prior knowledge of this.

Below is the content of the letter in full:

I represent, and act on behalf of, 55 crew members of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL), who are on board RCCL’s vessel, Adventure of the Seas, currently sailing towards Jamaica. For their own protection, I will not disclose their identities at present. Suffice it to say, all of my clients are Jamaican nationals.

My clients duly completed their online applications as requested by the government, via the government’s website at https://JamCOVID19.moh.gov.jm. Those applications would have undoubtedly informed the government of their impending arrival. Surprisingly, within the last 24 hours, the Minister of Health and the Minister of National Security have both indicated that they are unaware of the vessel’s impending arrival.

Regardless of the other Ministers’ knowledge (or lack thereof), may I remind the Minister that my clients, along with their additional 989 Jamaican national crew members onboard, have constitutional rights and freedoms.

In particular, section 13(3)(f)(i) sets out their right to enter their home country, i.e., “…the right of freedom of movement, that is to say, the right of every citizen of Jamaica to enter Jamaica…” Such a right can only be abrogated as set out in section 13(2), i.e., where it is “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society…,” a threshold fully ventilated in Julian Robinson v Attorney General [2019] JMFC Full 04.

It is my clients’ contention, that the Government of Jamaica, in communications with the cruise line, as far back as mid-March 2020, had requested that my clients, along with other crew members across the fleet, be quarantined and isolated. Their further understanding was that the Government of Jamaica’s request for their isolation, was in preparation for them being able to immediately disembark into Jamaica on May 23, 2020, after a short period of processing once they arrive at the Jamaican port on May 18, 2020. Indeed, in such anticipation and preparation, all of my clients have been in isolation now, for well over 14 days, some from as far back as March 16, 2020. This means, that these Jamaican nationals have been in a ship’s cabin, without personal contact for the last two months. Their meals have been served to them by being left on a stool outside their cabins, and their clothes and bedlinen dealt with sensitively by being placed in plastic bags and collected outside their cabins to be treated. They have endured this, in the confident hope of what they were informed was their government’s requirement for their disembarkation.

In light of the government’s lack of information regarding their circumstances, as well as recent utterances by the relevant Ministers, my clients are anxious, worried, and distressed. At this juncture, they simply need clarity from the government of Jamaica and the government’s approach relative to their constitutional rights. As such, given the background of this matter, my clients now ask the government of Jamaica to confirm:

1 That they will be allowed to disembark on May 23, 2020 once they arrive in the Jamaican port, and

2 That the period of time served in isolated quarantine on board the vessel will be taken into account, in allowing them to be with their families on arrival. …/3… Senator Honourable Kamina Johnson Smith Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Foreign Trade Page 3 In the premises, therefore, I request the government’s urgent response, certainly by or before May 22, 2020, given the grave and pressing circumstances in which my clients currently find themselves. I look forward to your urgent response.