KINGSTON, Jamaica — The issue of Jamaica’s final appellate court took centre stage at Thursday night’s election debate on leadership, with Prime Minister Andrew Holness indicating that he’s leaning towards the country establishing its own locally based final appellate court.

At the same time, Holness opined that citizens should be consulted on that important constitutional matter.

Opposition Leader Mark Golding, however, remains adamant that no referendum is needed to decide whether the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) should become the country’s final Court of Appeal.

The People’s National Party (PNP) has long argued that the decision regarding the country’s final appellate court should have been addressed in phase one of the constitutional reform process, but the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), through Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs Marlene Malahoo Forte, maintained that those deliberations will take place in phase two of the process.

Posed by veteran journalist Dionne Jackson-Miller, she asked Holness: “Opposition or no Opposition, referendum or not, tell us your position — do you support the removal of the Privy Council as Jamaica’s final court and, if so, when?”

In response, Holness said: “My position is that Jamaica should have its own local court as its final appellate court, but I also do respect the Caribbean Court of Justice, of which we are a part of its original jurisdiction.”

But Holness took the PNP to task for what he labelled as the thwarting of the consultations on constitutional reform.

“I will say, however, that on a matter as important as this that forms the architecture of our nation, the people must be consulted and that is why I put in place a process that would begin these consultations in a practical and phased basis — a process which has been thwarted by the Opposition,” he argued.

“The leader of the Opposition raises questions about democracy. On one hand, he does not want to consult. He wants the Government to just act without consulting the people, but then turn around and says, ‘We (the JLP) are the ones undermining democracy,” Holness said.

He called for Golding to be “consistent” in his views, as “democracy requires us to consult the people on these critical matters”.

But the PNP president clapped back, asking Holness how he was “choosing Jamaica” when he decided to become a member of the then Queen’s (now King’s) Privy Council.

Turning to the matter at hand about the island’s final appellate court, Golding explained, “We (the PNP) want to follow the constitution, and the constitution has been ruled, by the [United Kingdom-based] Privy Council as the highest court, as not requiring a referendum for the decision as to whether or not the CCJ should become the final [appellate] court, replacing the Privy Council, and that is what we (the PNP) think ought to be done.”

According to the Opposition leader, no other country that has moved away from the Privy Council has staged a referendum to do so.

While Golding said there were good reasons not to stage a referendum like those other countries, he did not elaborate on that point.