PARTIAL RELIEF
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Two noted attorneys have welcomed the United Kingdom’s (UK) decision to waive visa fees for Jamaicans travelling to argue cases before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) but remain critical of the requirement that locals still need a visa to access their highest court.
“What remains, still, is a situation where we have to get a visa to access our final court of appeal. [This] is, in my view, untenable,” King’s Counsel Peter Champagnie told The Gleaner on Thursday hours after the JCPC announced a free, streamlined process for visa applications by parties attending appeals in London.
Working with the UK Home Office and Ministry of Justice, the JCPC says it has enabled a “gratis visa route” to support Commonwealth citizens who are travelling specifically to attend and participate in JCPC proceedings.
However, the move covers only appellants, respondents, and legal teams and does not include wider family members.
Previously, all persons attending were required to obtain visas at a cost. A standard six-month UK visitor visa costs approximately $31,482.
Champagnie noted that even though it is now possible for Jamaicans to have matters heard via videoconferencing, the preferred method is to have matters argued in person.
He also stressed that the visa waiver does not support a call for a continuation of the JCPC as Jamaica’s final court.
“It certainly, in my view, ignites the position that the time has long come for Jamaica to settle on what venue or what composition or what structure ought to be our final court of appeal,” the veteran attorney said. We either need to move to the CCJ (Caribbean Court of Justice) or we need to devise a system other than the CCJ where we have our own final court of appeal here in Jamaica.”
The CCJ is the regional judicial tribunal for CARICOM and is headquartered in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
The court acts as an international court with exclusive jurisdiction to interpret and apply the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, which governs CARICOM and the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.
It also serves as the final court of appeal for five CARICOM states. There is recurrent debate in Jamaica on whether the island should replace the JCPC with the CCJ as its final appellate court on civil and criminal appeals.
‘OFFENSIVE’ REQUIREMENT
Arguing that Jamaica’s Constitution guarantees a person’s right to access court and open court hearings, attorney Bert Samuels said the requirement for a visa is “offensive” to that particular constitutional provision.
“Because one, you had to go over the hurdle of applying for a visa, which could be granted or not granted, and secondly, you had to pay for the visa. This was, you know, as if it were a denial of the right to court access and open court justice,” he told The Gleaner.
Samuels said it has “always disturbed” lawyers who have matters before the JCPC, that they had to get a visa to access the court.
The JCPC, in its announcement, said that when a hearing date is confirmed, legal teams should use its portal to confirm who will attend the hearing in person and whether these participants would be requesting a visa.
The JCPC will require confirmation of an applicant’s connection to the case and will then supply an invitation letter and further guidance on how to apply for the visa.
Visa applications will be processed through the usual database checks, and additional information may, in some circumstances, be required by the Home Office.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Kamina Johnson Smith, noted that the Government has been advocating for full removal of the visa requirement “but still [welcomes] the removal of the cost of the visa for this category of Jamaicans and the establishment of a clearer process”.
“This can only be viewed as positive with respect to access to our final court of appeal,” she said.
sashana.small@gleanerjm.com