WATCH: Final court should be Jamaican, not Caribbean — Chuck
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Accusing the People’s National Party (PNP) of using accession to the Caribbean Court of Justice as a tactic to delay constitutional reform, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Delroy Chuck says it is the Government’s position that the country’s eventual final court should be of Jamaican design, not external.
“I think there’s a general consensus amongst most Jamaicans and certainly within the government that the final court should be a Jamaican appellate court and not a Caribbean court of justice. A Caribbean court of justice is basically a part of a political system that doesn’t exist,” Chuck told Observer Online, in an interview at his office
The minister continued, “There’s no Caribbean political system, and in those circumstances we feel that although we have signed on to the original jurisdiction, we are not at this present moment agreeing to a Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) being our final court.”
The comments are the latest in a political tug-of-war between the Andrew Holness-led Government and the Opposition on whether the United Kingdom-based Privy Council or the CCJ should act as Jamaica’s final court amid attempts to transition to a republic.
Chuck maintained that there was no consensus yet as to the final court, stressing that moving to the CCJ is no different from having the Privy Council, as they are both external courts.
“The Privy Council we have been using and will continue to use until we in Jamaica can agree on what the final court should be,” he said.
Chuck urged the Opposition to gather a team in parliament to assess the other areas that could be agreed on and implemented.
The minister said Opposition Leader Mark Golding has not responded to a letter Holness wrote to Golding last year.
“The prime minister wrote him an initial letter; he responded requesting a meeting with the prime minister. The prime minister wrote him a long letter explaining what has happened, and he has not responded to the prime minister; that was from last year.”
Chuck added, “ He has not responded to that second letter from the prime minister, but it is the leader of the Opposition who took on constitutional affairs. He could send it back to Zuleika Jess, the Opposition spokesperson on justice, and then [she] and a team can meet with me.”
Chuck described it as most inappropriate that Golding had not organised a meeting between the relevant PNP spokespersons and their counterparts in Government.
(Video: Llewellyn Wynter)
