As we commemorate the first sitting of our republican Parliament today with the dedication of Republic Day, it is time to reflect upon the absence of any trend in the wider Commonwealth Caribbean to adopt republicanism.
Guyana started the trend in 1970 when it became the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and also abolished the Privy Council. In 1976, T&T changed its Constitution, became a republic, and replaced Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as Head of State. Dominica followed and became a republic with its independence in 1978.
After Dominica, no other countries became republics until Barbados in November 2021. St Vincent and the Grenadines attempted to change its Constitution to include republicanism in 2009. However, the voters rejected it in the required referendum.
At the moment, Jamaica is considering republicanism and has appointed a Constitution Commission. The two-thirds majorities required in both the House of Representatives (which the Government has) and the Senate will become a challenge for the Government in the Senate because of the fixed political arithmetic there.
The current leader of the opposition and president of the People’s National Party (PNP) Mark Golding made it clear at last weekend’s PNP Annual Conference that the PNP will not support republicanism unless there is the inclusion of a measure to replace the Privy Council with the CCJ as Jamaica’s final court of appeal.
The Government has indicated that it has not settled its position on the shift from the Privy Council to the CCJ and so it is only the Republic Bill that is likely to come forward. If that is the case, the bill will be dead on arrival as the PNP will not support it.
Such a bill will require three months to elapse before the commencement of debate on the Bill in Parliament and a further three months to elapse after the completion of debate in the Parliament. After that six-month period, the bill, if passed, must then be made the subject of a referendum between two and six months after its passage and, if passed at the referendum, then it can become law.
With the Opposition not on board unless their CCJ demands are met, the Republic Bill is unlikely to go anywhere. For the time being, the Opposition is holding the trump cards on this republican debate in Jamaica by virtue of the special majority and referendum requirements of the Constitution.
Apart from Jamaica, there appears to be little energy in the Commonwealth Caribbean to advance the cause of republicanism as King Charles III remains the Head of State of Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, St Lucia, St Kitts/Nevis, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
With the lack of energy to advance republicanism being quite evident in our region, one must engage in some kind of introspection as to why there is such lethargy on the issue. The fact that the Jamaican Opposition has bundled the CCJ matter with the republican issue has exposed the indecision of the Jamaican Government on the CCJ.
Some countries in the region have chosen to retain their access to the British honours system and, in some cases, have modified the British honours system in order to create local knighthoods and damehoods. What is the underlying issue of retrofitting knighthoods and damehoods to become local national awards in countries of our region?
In T&T, the issue of national awards was addressed in 1969 when the Government created the Order of the Trinity as a means of recognising the accomplishments of people in the society with the Trinity Cross, the Chaconia Medal, the Humming Bird Medal and the Public Service Medal of Merit.
The Order of the Trinity became the subject of litigation and was deemed to be discriminatory to people of non-Christian faiths in our plural society. Before the matter could reach the Privy Council, the Manning administration introduced The Distinguished Society of Trinidad and Tobago in 2008.
Republicanism is more than just changing from the person of the British monarch to a native-born locally-elected president. Likewise, the CCJ and republicanism may not necessarily go together as is the case in Belize and St Lucia which have the CCJ and also have King Charles III as their Head of State. T&T as a republic has the Privy Council because Eric Williams was not inclined to remove it in 1976.