Weak case for CCJ

THE EDITOR, Sir:

A LAW student - one of the lowest rungs on the ladder of the legal profession - makes the best argument to debunk the backward petit-bourgeoisie arguments of Justice Patrick Robinson and others, who are on the highest rungs of the legal-profession ladder about a 'colonial' mentality holding back Jamaica (or any other island) from embracing the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

The appeal to backward notions of nationalism to justify a court which many Jamaicans will feel is as detached from Peppers, St Elizabeth, as the court in London does no good for the argument for the adoption of the CCJ. The refusal to look at the political economy of the country and the role that a judiciary plays in same has been the great downfall of the argument for the adoption of the CCJ. The previous administration sank US$20 million (or more) of Jamaican taxpayers' money into this project in a haste to force Jamaicans to have to deal with the argument that, "Well, you have already paid for it. Why not just adopt it?"

Put it to a vote

If the champions of the court are so confident of the need for it, why not put it to a vote? Why the timidity in going for a vote? Or is it, like many things in our country, that those on top (the petit-bourgeoisie intelligentsia at the University of the West Indies (UWI), know what's best for the working man?

The fact is that those who would like for the CCJ to be Jamaica's final appellate court must show that it offers a tangible benefit to the working men and women of Jamaica. They must show, outside of some idealistic nonsense about appeals to quasi-racial nationalism, why the working man and woman should look towards the CCJ to uplift their socio-economic exis-tence. Until then, their (the CCJ proponents) arguments will continue to be the talk of the senior common rooms on the UWI campuses at Mona, Cave Hill and St Augustine, but nowhere else.

I am, etc.,

Robert Collie