Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is re­new­ing a call for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Gov­ern­ment to sup­port the re­moval of the Privy Coun­cil as this coun­try's fi­nal court of ap­peal. He said T&T should ho­n­our its orig­i­nal promise to have the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) as its fi­nal court of ap­peal. The CCJ is head­quar­tered in Port-of-Spain. Row­ley made the call in his mes­sage to mark the ob­ser­vance of this coun­try's 48 an­niver­sary of in­de­pen­dence on Tues­day.

The CCJ was es­tab­lished to re­place the Privy Coun­cil as the Caribbean's fi­nal ap­pel­late court. Un­der then Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, T&T had com­mit­ted to ac­cept­ing the CCJ as its fi­nal court of ap­peal but when his gov­ern­ment lost pow­er, there was a change of heart. Row­ley said in­de­pen­dence must mean more than giv­ing na­tion­al po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence.

He said in­de­pen­dence should al­so mean that na­tion­als must be re­spon­si­ble for in­ter­pret­ing the laws of the land and ar­bi­trat­ing on is­sues im­par­tial­ly. "In­de­pen­dence must al­so mean giv­ing full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for this to na­tion­als," he added.

He said T&T had re­neged on a promise to have the CCJ re­place the Privy Coun­cil as the na­tion's fi­nal court of ap­peal. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said re­cent­ly that the peo­ple of T&T must de­cide via a ref­er­en­dum whether the CCJ would re­place the Privy Coun­cil. Row­ley said the politi­cians were "not more com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment of T&T than our ju­rists. To so im­ply is to cast an un­war­rant­ed slur on them." He said ac­cept­ing the CCJ as the coun­try's fi­nal court of ap­peal was long over­due. "For the PNM, this is an is­sue of prin­ci­ple, not op­por­tunism," he added. The CCJ was in­au­gu­rat­ed in 2005 and al­so has an orig­i­nal ju­ris­dic­tion. Guyana, Be­lize, Bar­ba­dos and St Lu­cia have re­place the Privy Coun­cil with the CCJ as their fi­nal court of ap­peal.