Judge says Privy Council’s inconsistency hurts local judiciary
Court of Appeal judge, Seymour Panton, has suggested that the United Kingdom Privy Council’s inconsistency in its handling of capital murder cases has caused the local judiciary to appear somewhat incompetent in upholding certain convictions.
In fact, Panton, who was quick to point out that the Privy Council had served the region well, said the actions of the London-based Privy Council had subjected Jamaican judges to unfair criticisms.
Said Panton: “…In recent years, so far as capital murder is concerned, the Privy Council, in my view, has appeared to be continually shifting the goal post.
“I say this, not in criticism or condemnation, but more to explain the fact that sometimes the impression is created that the Appeal Court in Jamaica has done something wrong in upholding convictions for this offence,” Panton told guests at a January 18 Cornwall Bar Association awards dinner in Westmoreland where three Jamaican judges – Donald Bingham, David Pitter and Maurice Reckord – were honoured for long and distinguished service.
In recent years, the Judicial Committee of the United Kingdom Privy Council has overturned a number of capital murder convictions issued in Jamaica, the most notable being the celebrated 1990s Pratt and Morgan case in which the British law lords ruled that death row prisoners must be executed within five years. Failing that, their sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment.
The ruling drew complaints from Caribbean governments who said that it had effectively abolished capital punishment in the English-speaking Caribbean.
But the regional governments’ complaints fuelled more opposition to their proposed Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) which, in addition to having jurisdiction in interpreting the treaty governing the Caribbean Single Market and Economy when the region becomes a single trading bloc by December 2004, will replace the Privy Council as the final court of appeal for several Caribbean countries.
The proposed court’s critics have raised objections ranging from the quality of jurisprudence in the Caribbean, to the inadequacies of the justice system in the region, to fear that the court will be under-funded and the possibility of political interference.
While Justice Panton made it clear that he did not wish his arguments to be interpreted as being in support of the CCJ, he said the time had simply come for Jamaica to move to a different and higher level.
“We need to start thinking seriously about the management of all our affairs and we need to move towards this goal as one people,” Panton said.
He said it was his view since 1991 that the final court of appeal for Jamaica should be in the country and rejected any suggestion that the integrity of Jamaican judges would be compromised.
“It is unkind and baseless for anyone to say that there is likely to be interference of judges from any quarter, if the final court is in Jamaica,” Panton said. “In the 39 years of my life that I have spent with the law, I have not experienced it, nor have I been provided with any evidence of it.”
He dismissed as not serious, arguments by supporters of the Privy Council that it costs Jamaica nothing to retain it, and said that those views encouraged international mendicancy.
Jamaica, he said, should not remain intellectually stifled by the thinking of persons who were trained at the same legal institutions as most of us, but who have no connection whatsoever with the island.
“I say this with no disrespect, but surely there must be a more satisfactory road for us to travel,” Justice Panton said.
Addressing the recent decision by the UK to impose visa restrictions on Jamaica, Panton questioned whether anyone had considered the likely implications for a lawyer, wishing to appear before the Privy Council to argue a case, but who is refused a visa.
He called on all persons interested and concerned with matters of justice, as well as those within the legal fraternity, to secure a resolution on the matter soon, adding that careful note should be taken of the gradual closing of the British doors.