BUBBLING with excitement after the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council upheld the appeal against the murder conviction of his client Shawn “Shawn Storm” Campbell, senior attorney Bert Samuels on Thursday declared that this has not changed his opinion that Jamaica should make the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) its final appeal court.

Samuels, who has long advocated Jamaica ditching the Privy Council and replacing it with the CCJ, on Thursday told the
Jamaica Observer that his position will not change.

“How could it [the ruling] ever change my mind? I want a native court, I want black people to try my case,” said Samuels as he rubbished claims that the quality of the rulings from the Privy Council is superior to what is done in the region.

“That is the warped minds of those who don’t understand that the calibre of judges in the CCJ can match and outstrip any other appellate court in the world. Even though this judgment is in my favour, they are doing nothing new, they are just endorsing what we have always said,” added Samuels as he declared that the ruling from the Privy Council, which reversed that of the Jamaican Court of Appeal, was not an indictment on the quality of local judges.

“The Court of Appeal has brilliant judges, but this time they got it wrong,” said Samuels, who noted that the arguments made at the Privy Council and accepted by the British Law Lords were the same ones which had been made at the local Appeal Court.

“We were alarmed when the Jamaican Court of Appeal did not take that jury point and it took another court to say that there was a breach of the constitutional rights of Shawn Campbell. We are thinking that this is an instructive judgment. It ought not to have had to go to the Privy Council, it should have been stopped by the trial judge; if not, it should have been stopped by the Jamaican Court of Appeal,” argued Samuels.

According to Samuels, the legal team representing Shawn Storm made 13 pages of arguments at the Appeal Court and submitted 9,000 pages to the Privy Council.

The Privy Council on Thursday announced that it had unanimously concluded that the appeals of entertainer Shawn Storm and his fellow co-convicts Adidja “Vybz Kartel” Palmer, Kahira Jones, and Andre St John should be allowed and the appellants’ convictions be quashed on the grounds of juror misconduct.

“Section 14(2) of the Judicature (Appellate Jurisdiction) Act permits a retrial where a conviction is quashed if that is in the interests of justice. The board proposes to follow in this case its usual practice of remitting to the local courts the question whether a retrial should be ordered,” the Privy Council said in the written judgment.

Responding to the judgment, attorney-at-law Bianca Samuels, who was also part of the team which represented Shawn Storm, told a media briefing that while it was not what they wanted they were grateful that justice was served, “in that the Privy Council found that there was injustice in respect of the jury tampering issue”.

She told journalists that the legal team will have a challenge in terms of the retrial issue, “and that is why you don’t see me jumping up and down at this time”.

In the meantime, Bert Samuels said lawyers representing Shawn Storm will argue strongly against a retrial when the matter goes before the Court of Appeal.

“The Court of Appeal has to decide whether it is fair, after 10 years in prison, rather 12 years, [the accused men] will have to get lawyers again for the case, with all the publicity that has been made about voice notes, and all that has been circulated in the Jamaican population whether we can find seven jurors… to hear this matter and come to a verdict,” he said.

“We will fight… to tell that court that in all the circumstances it would not be in the interest of justice for Shawn Campbell to be placed on a retrial,” added Mr Samuels who made it clear that he has not yet been retained by Shawn Storm to represent him before the Appeal Court.