A Jamaican attorney-at-law, Hugh Wildman, reportedly asserted, inter alia, that the quality of judgments of the Privy Council is “far superior” to those emanating from our Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). In purported proof of his conclusion, he cited an unspecified case in Guyana.
Mr Wildman’s credentials seem to be anchored in his practice of unverified ubiquity but, given the notion of contemporary democracy en vogue, a more discerning profession ought to accord his view the merit or otherwise it deserves.
After more than half a century of gestation, the CCJ finally entered this regional space in response to the neocolonial global construct which continued to bedevil the Caribbean after various political Independence ceremonies.
Guyana had taken the first step in this direction by abolishing appeals to the Privy Council since 1970. Contemporary wisdom prompted the vision that Independence dictated that Caribbean states ought to compete collectively from a position of parallel or alternative decision-making in every sphere of our statehood.
BACKING FROM PRIVY COUNCIL
The CCJ’s rationale and leitmotif were reserved to create and foster an endogenous jurisprudence without peeling away our vestigial linkages with our common-law heritage. Out of this well shall be drawn the judicial wisdom, but in a more relevant localised form, palatably appealing to the intended or affected consumer.
There have been many very perceptive observations over the last decade, or maybe longer, from Their Lordships of the Privy Council which supported the establishment of a regional court of last resort.
Guyana – and I had the honour and privilege of representing its interests on this front until I demitted office on December 6, 2011 – submitted to both the original and appellate jurisdictions of the CCJ from its incarnation.
Speaking for myself, this apex court has exemplified a lucidity of logic and learning, together with a learned dispassion in its judgments…
Read more: Charles Ramson, The Gleaner
