Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley promised full sup­port re­quired by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment to abol­ish crim­i­nal ap­peals to the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil (JCPC) and adopt the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) as its fi­nal court of ap­peal.

Row­ley said that min­utes af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion. He said: "We anx­ious­ly look for­ward to the leg­is­la­tion, which will get our fullest sup­port. "It's a clas­sic case of half-a-loaf be­ing bet­ter than no bread," Row­ley said in an in­ter­view with re­porters at the Par­lia­ment build­ing on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

He was speak­ing in the wake of the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to abol­ish crim­i­nal ap­peals to the Privy Coun­cil but not civ­il mat­ters. He said while the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment was hap­py with the de­vel­op­ment it would have pre­ferred "to make a clean break of it (Privy Coun­cil)."

He said he did not agree with the Gov­ern­ment's po­si­tion that civ­il ap­peals should be re­tained be­cause of the need for com­mer­cial-re­lat­ed pur­pos­es. He added: "If the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice is good enough to han­dle crim­i­nal mat­ters, we are of the view that we are equal­ly com­pe­tent to han­dle civ­il mat­ters."

He said the for­mer re­jec­tion of ac­cep­tance of the CCJ by the UNC was not based on cau­tion but its loss of pow­er af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion in 2001. "It means that we are mak­ing some progress but we are not there yet. We will pre­fer a com­plete re­moval from the Privy Coun­cil," Row­ley said.

He said the Prime Min­is­ter was forced to change her po­si­tion on the CCJ be­cause it did not have wide­spread sup­port. He added: "I think the Prime Min­is­ter and her Gov­ern­ment could not find any sig­nif­i­cant sup­port for their po­si­tion be­cause it was crys­tal clear that it was UNC pol­i­tick­ing."

He said the pro­posed change was be­ing "sug­ar-coat­ed" as one of cau­tion but "it is not that at all." He said adopt­ing the CCJ as the fi­nal court of ap­peal was a com­ple­tion of in­de­pen­dence.