If the Gov­ern­ment is in­tent on chang­ing this coun­try’s Con­sti­tu­tion to re­place the Privy Coun­cil with the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ), the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is adamant it will not re­ceive the need­ed Op­po­si­tion sup­port in Par­lia­ment.

Mean­while, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj be­lieves the de­ci­sion to abol­ish the Privy Coun­cil should be made by the peo­ple through a na­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

The de­bate on the Privy Coun­cil has resur­faced fol­low­ing the death of for­mer chief jus­tice and CCJ pres­i­dent Michael de la Bastide. In pay­ing trib­ute to de la Bastide’s life, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour said this coun­try should ho­n­our the for­mer CJ by re­plac­ing the Privy Coun­cil with the CCJ.

“In ac­knowl­edg­ing his in­deli­ble con­tri­bu­tion to the qual­i­ty of this Re­pub­lic’s proud de­vel­op­ment from its in­de­pen­dence, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go can now con­tribute to com­plet­ing his dream of re­plac­ing the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil with the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice,” he told Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day.

Cur­rent­ly, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca, Guyana and St Lu­cia recog­nise the CCJ as its fi­nal ap­peal court. For T&T to join them, it will re­quire changes to its Con­sti­tu­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 54 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, “A Bill for an Act un­der this sec­tion shall not be passed by Par­lia­ment un­less it is sup­port­ed at the fi­nal vote there­on—(i) in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, by the votes of not less than three-fourths of all the mem­bers of the House; and (ii) in the Sen­ate, by the votes of not less than two-thirds of all the mem­bers of the Sen­ate.”

Ac­cord­ing to Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Wade Mark, the UNC still be­lieves the CCJ is open to po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence.

“As far as the UNC is con­cerned, the peo­ple of T&T get more fair­ness and jus­tice in the Privy Coun­cil than they get in oth­er ar­eas of the Caribbean,” Mark said.

He said the PNM Gov­ern­ment has shown it was prone to cor­rupt­ing in­de­pen­dent and pub­lic bod­ies.

“You have seen in­stances where they have used their po­lit­i­cal of­fice to charge a chief jus­tice called Jus­tice Sat­nar­ine Shar­ma, you have seen this Gov­ern­ment at work with how they treat­ed Bas­deo Pan­day. They have used their pow­er of in­flu­ence with­in the Ju­di­cia­ry, not on­ly in T&T but out­side as well, and as far as we are con­cerned, that cor­rupt Gov­ern­ment has used the sys­tem to ex­tend their rule and their op­pres­sion against the peo­ple of T&T can­not and will nev­er re­ceive, not now nor in the fu­ture, our sup­port for any Caribbean Court of Jus­tice,” Mark con­tend­ed.

The irony, ac­cord­ing to Mark, is that the PNM’s “found­ing fa­ther” was a Privy Coun­cil sup­port­er.

“The fa­ther of the na­tion, Dr Er­ic Williams, had the op­por­tu­ni­ty in 1962 and 1976, when he had an over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty. If he want­ed to bring about any changes to the Privy Coun­cil, he would not have en­trenched a three-quar­ters ma­jor­i­ty to change the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“So, it showed that Er­ic Williams recog­nised that in a small so­ci­ety like T&T, the in­flu­ence is re­al, whether you have some­thing called the CCJ or your own lo­cal CCJ, in­flu­enc­ing not on­ly ac­cess to jus­tice but al­so the course of jus­tice. Both (George) Cham­bers and Williams nev­er tam­pered with and nev­er raised is­sues sur­round­ing the re­ten­tion of the Privy Coun­cil. That be­gan un­der Man­ning’s reign and con­tin­ues un­der Row­ley,” Mark added.

Right way is for the peo­ple to have a say–Ramesh

For­mer AG Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, who signed off on al­low­ing the CCJ head­quar­ters to be es­tab­lished in this coun­try, told Guardian Me­dia, “I do not agree with the idea that the ju­di­cial com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil as the fi­nal court of ap­peal should be abol­ished un­less T&T has a ref­er­en­dum to give the pub­lic an op­por­tu­ni­ty to vote as to whether the fi­nal court of ap­peal should be re­moved at this time.”

“The ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice does not on­ly af­fect mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment and mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion, it af­fects the en­tire pop­u­la­tion of T&T, and if it is you have to re­move the Privy Coun­cil as the fi­nal court of ap­peal, it is on­ly fit­ting that the peo­ple par­tic­i­pate in such a de­ci­sion, and the on­ly way it is recog­nised is if you have a ref­er­en­dum on the is­sue.”

The for­mer AG said the is­sue was not whether one prefers it over the Privy Coun­cil, “the is­sue here is what is the right way to make such a de­ci­sion. And the on­ly right way to make such a de­ci­sion is for the peo­ple to have a say on whether the Privy Coun­cil should re­main or be abol­ished.”

Na­tion­al ref­er­en­dums on this is­sue were un­der­tak­en in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, and Grena­da, in 2018. In both cas­es, most of the pop­u­la­tion re­ject­ed the switch of the fi­nal court of ap­peals from the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the British Privy Coun­cil to the CCJ.

Robin­son-Reg­is: Leg­is­la­tion to adopt the court not yet on agen­da

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Ar­mour’s po­si­tion on the in­tegri­ty of the CCJ can be found in his con­tri­bu­tion to the Sen­ate in May 2022.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira brought a pri­vate mo­tion ti­tled, ‘Recog­nise the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice as Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fi­nal Court of Ap­peal.’ 

Ac­cord­ing to Hansard, Ar­mour start­ed his con­tri­bu­tion by stat­ing that, “Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley gave me his un­equiv­o­cal sup­port for mak­ing a main plank of my tenure in of­fice the com­ple­tion of this coun­try’s jour­ney to ful­fil its treaty oblig­a­tions of ac­ced­ing to the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice as our fi­nal Court of Ap­peal to re­place the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil.” 

Ar­mour told the Sen­ate that the CCJ should be a source of Caribbean pride. He did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, said that leg­is­la­tion to ful­ly adopt the CCJ was not yet on their agen­da. How­ev­er, she point­ed out that there is a Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form that is ac­cept­ing rec­om­men­da­tions on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

Robin­son-Reg­is added, “It is dis­turb­ing and even bor­der­ing on em­bar­rass­ing that the CCJ is sit­ed here, and yet we do not have this court as our fi­nal court of ap­peal.”