Dancing away from the CCJ

Dancing away from the CCJ

Ex-St Lucia PM sees 'bleak future' for Caricom

Source: Jamaica Observer

Published: December 29, 2010

APPREHENSION over future leadership at the Georgetown-based Caribbean Community Secretariat has now grown to include the future of the Port-of-Spain-headquartered Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

In the case of the latter, current talk in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago to dance away from accessing the CCJ in preference for establishing their own final appeal court has drawn a sharp rebuke from Dr Kenny Anthony, a former prime minister of St Lucia. He had played a key role in the formation of the CCJ when he headed the legal division of the Community Secretariat.

There will, therefore, be no formal handing over by the retired Carrington to his successor when Caricom leaders hold their scheduled first Inter-Sessional Meeting for 2011 in Grenada in February,With the surprise decision by Edwin Carrington to step down as Caricom secretary general at the end of this month after 18 years of service, Deputy Secretary General Lolila Applewaithe will begin acting as secretary general from January 1.

A new six-month chairmanship also begins next month when host for the coming Inter-Sessional Meeting in St George's, Prime Minister Tillman Thomas takes over from his Jamaican counterpart, Bruce Golding.

While he has been quite forthcoming in articulating Caricom's support for Haiti and speaking reassuringly about regional economic integration, it is Prime Minister Golding who, within recent weeks, has further contributed to deep concerns over the future of the CCJ.

As if seeking political cover under an idea initially raised in Trinidad and Tobago -- but yet to be advocated as official policy -- Prime Minister Golding is marketing an initiative for Jamaica to replace the Privy Council in London with its own final court of appeal.

With no known appetite for the CCJ, Golding and his Jamaica Labour Party (under earlier leadership as well), have long been ducking the challenge of accessing the regional court by linking such a move with the need for a national referendum

Read that proposition to mean, basically, more faith in the competence and integrity in the British law lords of the Privy Council than the fine legal minds this region has produced across member states, and with arduous efforts to ensure appointments free from the political influences so often talked about with respect to the functioning of local judiciaries.

The situation becomes even more intriguing when it is understood that a national referendum to replace the Privy Council is not really a necessity in the case of Jamaica, as it is in countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.

Further, various British law lords associated with the Privy Council have been urging former British colonies, like ours in Caricom, to initiate arrangements to break the dependency syndrome on the Privy Council.

How sad, in contrast, to hear Caricom leaders like Golding and his Trinidadian counterpart, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, talking about replacing the Privy Council with their respective final appeal court.

At the same time, they steadfastly avoid encouragement to access the CCJ -- as Barbados, Guyana and Belize have done -- with a court of original jurisdiction in resolving trade disputes as well as serving as the final appellate institution of the entire community.

In St, Lucia, Dr Anthony's expression of "surprise and bewilderment" came in his response to the emerging tactics, both in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, to push the idea of a final national court of appeal without any commitment to the CCJ.

Anthony, known for his robust advocacy of development of a West Indian jurisprudence, believes that if Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago persist in spreading the notion of individual final appeal courts it would strike a "lethal blow" to the furthering of any support for the CCJ.

He is bewildered by what he views as a "disingenuous" contention to avoid political influence in the case of the CCJ. If indeed, said Anthony, the CCJ "is susceptible to political influence -- as is being claimed in Jamaica, for instance, then how much more could a Jamaican (or T&T) final appeal court be affected by political manipulations?"

The prospect, therefore, as he lamented, for realising the full benefits of creating a Caribbean Community, as envisaged by the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, "is becoming bleaker and bleaker if we cannot be committed to so compelling a case for region-wide endorsement of the CCJ.

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Dancing-away-from-the-CCJ_8258962#ixzz19WcavMHs

CARICOM IN 'COMA'

by RICKEY SINGH

Source: Jamaica Observer

Published Sunday, January 17, 2010

EVEN as the Caribbean Community Secretariat remains intensely engaged in commendable regional humanitarian aid efforts for earthquake-devastated Haiti, the prognosis for any significant advancement in Caricom's major programmes during the first half of this second decade of the 21st century does not appear encouraging.

Indeed, with a perceived trend towards a narrow nationalism, masked in a few cases as new approaches in trade, immigration and economic policies, there lurks the danger of an undermining of the growth of a once robust regional spirit to make the Single Market and Economy (CSME) a reality.

At present, while the Caricom Secretariat is preparing for the first Inter-Sessional Meeting of Heads of Government for this year, scheduled for Dominica next month, or early March, there are serious misgivings about the way forward for the CSME -- the Community's flagship project originally targeted for inauguration in 2015.

In November 2009, one of the foremost collaborators in the regional enterprise that is Caricom, Sir Shridath Ramphal, had painfully noted in an address to a forum of distinguished West Indians in Port of Spain on "Regional Progress and Challenges" that "As with West Indies cricket, regionalism can be damaged if we forget our trust and are ruled by short-term fixes. We did not become independent of Britain to scatter our regional heritage to the winds of passing fortune. But we are being tempted to do just that, and Caricom is blowing in the wind..."

A former long-serving Commonwealth secretary general and chancellor of the University of the West Indies warned:

"The CSME has lost credibility. Shame overwhelms us as we create the Caribbean Court of Justice and cling, unwanted, to the Privy Council. If things continue to fall apart like this, the centre will not hold. Caricom is comatose; and without intensive care a coma can precede death."

Ramphal's "straws"

Asked last Wednesday (before the announcement of Haiti's earthquake disaster) whether he still felt the same way about Caricom as he did at last November's symposium in Port of Spain, Ramphal told this columnist, "Unfortunately I still do", then quickly added:

"If I am to clutch at straws I would derive hope from the recent initialling of the treaty to establish an OECS Economic Union; and the potential for deeper cooperation between Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, as exemplified in current negotiations involving the operations of Air Jamaica..."

At Caricom's upcoming inter-sessional in Roseau, Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson is expected to give a report on the CSME Convocation he had hosted last October.

It was an occasion when representatives of both the region's private sector and labour movement did not spare criticisms of what they continue to view as yawning gaps between official rhetoric and actions to generate public confidence that arrangements for advancing the CSME are indeed being seriously pursued.

A notable absentee from the CSME Convocation was the regional economist, Professor Norman Girvan, author of the seminal report on "Towards a Single Economy and a Single Development Vision" that outlined a "road map" for strategising and methodical implementation.

To say that Girvan has himself become disillusioned over the lack of necessary collective approaches to implement the CSME project -- unanimously endorsed by the Community Heads of Government -- would be to recall a similar discouraging example as it relates to Professor Vaughn Lewis's report on the need for a new and more effective form of governance of Caricom affairs.

Now heading towards its 37th year of existence on July 4, 2010, Caricom remains divided on how and when to introduce what leading political and economic scholars, eminent private sector executives and others regard as a necessary new administrative architecture.

At its core -- as long recommended in the 1992 report of The West Indian Commission that was headed by Sir Shridath -- could be a team of eminent Caricom nationals (either three or five) armed with executive authority and focused on systematic implementation of unanimously adopted decisions by the Heads of Government.

If it's not a case of a seeming reluctance by the Community's political directorate against sharing power with leading regional technocrats, or a preference to hide behind expedient interpretations of "national sovereignty", then the Community's leaders should come clean in 2010 on what are the main barriers to the introduction of a more relevant system of governance of Caricom.

Disappointments

Last year, when there were a lot of "special meetings" of Caricom ministers and leaders, as well as task forces with overlapping mandates, to find practical responses to the negative impact on regional economies of the global financial and economic crisis, we were told of plans for a special delegation of Heads of Government and top fiscal and economic experts to engage the international financial institutions in Washington.

Well, the year ended and no such engagement is known to have occurred.

We were also informed of an expected summit of Caricom leaders with President Barack Obama before year-end. No such meeting took place and none is yet carded for any time in 2010.

The region's people are aware of developments that resulted in the miniaturising of the once high-profile Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM).

Less awareness prevails about the status quo of either CSME-readiness arrangements or the extent of progress by the special unit in the Community Secretariat responsible for implementation arrangements for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) entered into with the European Union in 2008.

The first decade of the 21st century ended last year with ongoing disappointments that no progress of significance was made on the much-publicised people-focused project of intra-regional free movement, particularly as it relates to skilled Community nationals. The issue remains enmeshed in immigration controversies.

The current immigration situation in Antigua and Barbuda, for example, appears serious enough to warrant some direct action by the governments of Jamaica and Guyana with that of the Baldwin Spencer administration in St John's, as there have been repeated reports of unfair and inhumane treatment of their nationals.

At the symposium in Port of Spain on "Regional Progress and Challenges" referred to earlier, Sir Shridath Ramphal had expressed the hope that the results of that event could "help bring us (the region) to our senses...".

Alas, that hope has often been variously expressed at successive Caricom Heads of Government.

It would, therefore, be quite refreshing to see Caricom leaders demonstrate a new readiness to advance the goals of our economic integration movement at their coming 31st annual summit in July - venue is still undecided.

Hopefully this will bring closure to the multiplicity of negative features and occurrences during the second half of the first decade of this 21st century to inspire hope for a significant change, at least during the first half of this second decade when the CSME is scheduled to be operationalised.

The Poltical Union dance

This political union dance

Manning goes on defensive after "flying consultations"
Source: Jamaica Observer

RICKY SINGH

Publication date: Sunday, August 31, 2008

As Prime Minister Patrick Manning spearheads official celebratory activities marking today's 46th Independence anniversary of Trinidad and Tobago, he would most likely be quietly reflecting on the clear disinterest by some of his Caribbean Community colleagues in any form of regional political integration.In his assumed high-profile jet-shuttle initiatives to spread the message in favour of regional and political integration, to which his government and three others in the Eastern Caribbean have committed themselves, in principle, Manning returned home last week knowing that, at best, he could count a so-called "coalition of the willing" on just one hand.

More likely perhaps no more than three. They would include his colleagues from St Vincent and the Grenadines (Ralph Gonsalves) and Grenada (Tilman Thomas). St Lucia's Prime Minister, Stephenson King, had participated in the August 14 meeting in Port-of-Spain hosted and chaired by Manning but it is doubtful that, given the precarious nature of his administration, he could be considered a serious partner in a political union initiative with Trinidad and Tobago.

Neither Haiti nor Suriname, with their different political history and culture was ever viewed as potential allies in a political integration process-except in a distant long term.

For its part, The Bahamas has remained under successive governments on the periphery of Caricom. It operates more as a partner in functional cooperation, with limited interest in the single market, but no interest in the single-economy dimension.

The two countries whose new governments are also yet to commit themselves in any serious way to the creation of Caricom's single economy, are Jamaica (under the leadership of Prime Minister Bruce Golding) and Belize (led by Prime Minister Dean Barrow). It was, therefore, quite puzzling that Manning should have extended his jet-flying visits to meet with his counterparts in Kingston and Belmopan. The situation became less puzzling when he finally felt obliged to explain why he had included Haiti, Suriname and The Bahamas in the process.

After much criticism by political opponents and comments in the region's media, the result of a poor, if not contemptuous effort to communicate with the public, Manning was doing some explaining late last week.

He had extended, out of courtesy, his "consultations" with Caricom counterparts outside of the trio of OECS heads of government that had signed with him a "Joint Declaration" (the text remained a secret at the time of writing) on regional economic and political integration. He never requested ANYONE, he insists, to join the Port-of-Spain initiative by four prime ministers for a limited political union projected for 2013.

JAMAICA AND BELIZE

Those who were aware of the disinterest by both Jamaica's Golding and Belize's Barrow in any form of political union, should now be more concerned in ascertaining the extent of the commitment of both to encouraging the transformation of Caricom into a seamless regional economy.

Such a course would, inevitably, involve a more centrally driven governance system, located in a proposed Single Caricom Act, and realised with a new administrative mechanism armed with executive authority to ensure effective management of the Community's affairs.

In the present circumstances, a Community whose members cannot get their acts together to advance arrangements for a single economy by 2015; nor (except for Barbados and Guyana) abolish the Privy Council in preference for the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as their court of last resort, seem to be "spinning top in mud", to borrow an expression of our Trini cousins, with the flow of "talks" about even a limited political union by 2013.

These days we are being exposed to strong negative vibes about the future of a once enthusiastically promised CSME (Caricom Single Market and Economy), the target dates for which have kept shifting and remains elusive, even as the political rhetoric continues to capture headlines.

The region's people are being kept largely in the dark about the defaults by politicians and technocrats that have resulted, to date, in delivering only about one-third of approximately 330 of required "implementation actions" to make a reality of the single economy.

In relation to the CCJ, all of our governments dutifully spend taxpayers' money annually to maintain but, shockingly, they fail to have it as their final court. Now, the new game in town is prime minister Manning's jetting around to talk about limited forms of economic and political union, without any road map made known publicly on the steps towards such a goal; and no move to promote national consultations on this vital issue.

Little wonder the deepening disenchantment and cynicism about Caricom's future as the viable economic integration movement which it was conceptualised and launched to be by its visionary architects.