CRC prepares for talks on Jamaica’s apex court
Published:Wednesday | June 12, 2024 | 12:12 AM
Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs Marlene Malahoo Forte says the Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC) is planning comprehensive discussions on Jamaica’s final court.
“‘These discussions will extend well beyond the CRC. It will involve the people directly,” the minister, who is also co-chair of the CRC, said on Tuesday.
In her contribution to the Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives, Malahoo Forte said the final appellate court is one of the “hot-button issues” that has been discussed at length by the CRC, calling it “the big elephant staring at us in the room at every stage”.
According to Malahoo Forte, the country will have to begin in earnest a serious conversation about the options that are open to Jamaica.
The parliamentary Opposition has made it clear that Jamaica’s severance from the British monarchy must be twinned with a departure from the Privy Council.
However, the Government has said that Jamaica’s split with the British monarchy will take place in the first phase of the constitutional-reform process. A decision about the country’s final court would follow in the next phase.
In her presentation yesterday, Malahoo Forte also announced that the CRC was moving to prepare the drafting instructions for the substantive bill to transition Jamaica from a constitutional monarchy to a republic.
She said the proposal is for the bill to be reviewed by a joint select committee of the Parliament.