KINGSTON, Jamaica – Jamaica’s National Commission for Reparations (NCR) is currently pursuing discussions with the Attorney General’s Department (AGD) on an approach to the Privy Council’s (PC) response to concerns about the possibility of Jamaica being denied access to financial reparations from the United Kingdom.

“It is a matter on which there is fundamental disagreement within the legal community,” former Prime Minister PJ Patterson conceded, as he responded to questions at Thursday’s launch of the Report on Reparations for Transatlantic Chattel Slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean, at the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Mona Campus in Kingston.

Patterson, who was a special guest at the event, stated that, “eminent legal people have been advancing the argument that Jamaica ought not to leave the council before it has pursued the right of citizens to have access to His Majesty’s Privy Council, not for official appeals, but for redress”.

“It is a matter on which there is fundamental disagreement within the legal community. Out of respect, I am not going to speak to that view point, but I want to refute it by some very clear and specific grounds,” he warned.

He said that, at the moment, the Privy Council has issued new directions, which are reducing the scope of constitutional rights for individuals who believe they have the right to Appeal to the PC for leave to appeal decisions by the local courts.

“Out of respect, I am not going to speak to that view point, but I want to refute it by some very clear and specific grounds,” he stated.

But, Chair of the NCR, Laleta Davis-Mattis, told the launch that there is really no consensus on that particular legal approach” but that, in keeping with what Patterson had said, “we are actually in dialogue with the Attorney General’s Department on this particular path”.

She recalled that about two years ago, “it was actually announced that Jamaica was embarking on a policy towards reparatory justice. That policy framework mirrors the Caribbean plan, in addition to the other elements we have incorporated in our own work,” she explained.

Davis-Mattis also noted that the issues raised by the NCR would involve: psychological damage; financial approach to reparations; seeking to answer questions, as to who will receive the funds; what is the funding model; and negotiating and aligning itself with the different areas within government, including agriculture, tourism, health, etcetera.

“The council, in forging the way forward and, as part of its proposed public consultation process, is geared toward addressing all of these particular areas,” she pointed out.

“So, the psychological damage is very important, as part of the framework. In fact the council has also embarked on what we have dubbed, our own internal reparatory justice programme; and the philosophy behind that is grounded in the fact that we, ourselves, to some extent, have perpetuated some of the injustices that have been inflicted on us, and that we ourselves have a responsibility towards repair,” she noted.

The NCR Chair informed the launch that the government’s approach to reparatory justice in Jamaica is bipartisan and consensual and, therefore, there is a lot of work to do.

The NCR has stated that Jamaica would be due at least 2.3 trillion pounds (approximately J$416.3 trillion) from any slavery reparations compensation paid by Britain to the region. That figure is based on Jamaica’s 20.64 percent of the 7.5 trillion calculated by British theologian, Dr Robert Beckford, as being owed by Britain to its former colonies.

Balford Henry