CCJ consultation process inadequate, says Kay Osborne

WESTERN BUREAU:

Social commentator and retired journalist Kay Osborne is calling for a revision of the current consultative process on the Caribbean Court of Justice [CCJ] as Jamaica’s final appellate court, to allow citizens a more direct avenue to learn about the issue and express their opinions about it.

Speaking during Sunday’s online Zoom forum held by the Association of Christian Communicators and Media [ACCM], Osborne said the Government’s efforts to bring the subject to the masses has been inadequate.

“The public needs to understand all of the issues related to the CCJ matter. Unfortunately, the Government has really done a disservice, as the so-called consultation process that has been used is flawed and inadequate, and it needs to be completely revised with competent leadership and a professional, well-designed process to get the voice of the people in, so as to influence the decisions, because the voice of the people has not yet been heard,” said Osborne.

“What really needs to happen is that the people need to be informed about what is the CCJ, and why is there a need to move away from the British people, who were our former enslavers, continuing to adjudicate our legal matters when we have competent, skilled, legal luminaries, who are capable of doing that, and we have the body of the CCJ that is set up to do that,” added Osborne.

The Government has led several discussions in parliament and the public domain on the constitutional reform process, which includes the issue of changing Jamaica’s final court of appeal from the United Kingdom-based Privy Council to the CCJ.

Osborne said that the shift away from the Privy Council is necessary because the judges at the CCJ will be better able to understand the regional context of the people whose cases they will hear.

“The people elect officials to act on our behalf in fundamental issues, and it has always been my position that the Caribbean people have a right to determine our own destiny by becoming a republic. We also have the right to have our legal disputes adjudicated within the region, by a team of what we know are exemplary Caribbean judges who are familiar with our peculiarities, and within a system that has safeguards against political interference, and that system is the CCJ,” said Osborne.

“Replacing the Privy Council with the CCJ will provide, as we all know, greater access to justice at a much-reduced cost. Poorer Jamaicans, working class Jamaicans, cannot afford the expenses to take their legal matters to England, because they have to hire a British lawyer, and most people cannot afford that, plus the issue of travel and so on,” continued Osborne.

However, sociologist and Roman Catholic deacon Peter Espeut expressed reservations about making the CCJ Jamaica’s final appellate court, citing the selection process for the CCJ’s chief judge and the potential for that court to repeal Jamaica’s current laws against abortion and same-sex marriage.

“In two cases recently, the CCJ has voted to overturn constitutional matters that fall under savings clauses, as the savings clauses in Guyana and in Barbados prevented certain things from being changed. Our savings clause in Jamaica prevents laws to support abortion, gay marriage, and so on. If in two cases in recent history the CCJ has overturned savings clauses, what is going to stop the CCJ from overturning the Jamaican savings clause and legalising homosexuality and abortion?” said Espeut.

“I have a very hard time with this on a point of principle. We want decolonisation, we do not want the ‘slave master’ thing, we want our own local court, but our own local court has problems. The president of the court is chosen by politicians, and their track record is not good when it comes to savings clauses,” added Espeut.

The CCJ had previously ruled in 2018 that Guyana’s law against crossdressing was unconstitutional, and in 2022 dismissed a case in Barbados where a man committed sexual violence against another man in 2015.