These are reflections in response to a prominent news item in the Jamaica Observer of Friday, December 5, headlined ‘Let’s get it done’, in relation to a speech delivered by Minister Delroy Chuck.

It is altogether bewildering how the disastrous Hurricane Melissa could have served to accentuate the cold, unjust stance heartlessly adopted by a Government of our own people concerning denial of access to final justice experienced by the majority of our citizens.

Transfer of portfolio responsibility for constitutional affairs into the hands of former Rhodes scholar and seasoned attorney-at-law Delroy Chuck coincided with an extensive section of our country, including the breadbasket parish of St Elizabeth, being ravaged by the most powerful hurricane in Jamaica’s recorded history.

It is estimated that it will require multi-billions of dollars over several years of concerted restoration effort for normality to return to the western parishes in particular.

The catastrophic happening called for deep meditation by Minister Chuck for him to be able to present to our people, in their distress, a well-thought-out, sensitive approach to constitutional reform, a long-time issue on the public agenda.

Two upfront items are on that reform agenda: a desirable move for Jamaica to become a republic and the privilege of the emancipating exercise of the right of access to final justice to be made available to all our citizens, not only the wealthy, who alone have been favourably equipped to enjoy the privilege through all the years.

Let us recall that the journey towards republican status constitutionally requires attentive engagement of the adult population and a referendum exercise demanding an outlay of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Of course, by any thinking, as a result of the unprecedented challenges faced by the country, no such contemplation could ever be envisaged at this juncture.

On the contrary, provision of access to final justice, too long denied to generations, can be freely realised in short order without any intense people participation by a vote in each parliamentary chamber to enable us to fulfil our treaty obligation to link to the appellate jurisdiction of the universally acclaimed Caribbean Court of Justice.

Chuck and the Government, however, remain stonily unmoved, insistent on a big-budget dream of a local final appellate court, maintaining that Jamaicans must await becoming suitably positioned for an expensive referendum to be held on whether such a court should be created or remain tied to the inaccessible Privy Council.

Meanwhile, they bluntly refuse to give any reason whatsoever why any suggestion of the long-denied privilege of access being justly granted to the overwhelming deprived majority of our people by abandoning the British institution to transition to the regional court is, for them, completely off the table — not even as an interim measure, pending the emergence of their sought-after local final court.

Yet, astonishingly, in relation to the exacting people-engaging, costly venture to attain republican status, the
Observer of Friday, December 5, 2025 reported that Justice Minister Chuck, recently addressing justices of the peace in the Corporate Area, in this agonising aftermath of the hurricane calamity, proceeded to invite Opposition Leader Mark Golding to “Let’s get it done…by next year.” What?

Residing in the rustic hills of central Jamaica, from where Minister Chuck and I both hail, a flabbergasted “Farmer Joe”, now in the autumn of his years, having been schooled at the college of hard knocks under common-sense tutelage, would succinctly declare in shock lament: “Good Lord, Minister!”

So, dutifully, Minister Chuck, for the vast disadvantaged majority of our people, your employers in this practising democracy, no caring, safe pair of hands?

AJ Nicholson is a former People’s National Party legislator who served as minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, as well as attorney general.

AJ Nicholson