{"id":15752,"date":"2018-05-22T15:59:05","date_gmt":"2018-05-22T19:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=15752"},"modified":"2018-05-22T15:59:05","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T19:59:05","slug":"commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj\/","title":{"rendered":"COMMENTARY: We are far from ready for CCJ"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CCJ\u00a0 MAYBE IN THE FUTURE BUT WE FAR FROM READY…………………….…by Audley Phillip<\/strong><\/p>

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Most of our governments in the region appear to be backing down or away from the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as its final appellate place.\u00a0 Outgoing Barbados Prime Minister Fuendel Stuart recently made it known that if his Democratic Labour Party wins the upcoming General elections, that his government will scrap the CCJ.\u00a0 In a damning indictment of the CCJ, Mr Stuart referred to the CCJ judges as politicians in robes.<\/p>\n

In Jamaica, the Jamaica Labour Party government headed by Andrew Holness has often said that they will not support the CCJ and wants to keep the Privy Council as its final court of appeal.\u00a0 Their position remains unchanged as this was their position even when they were in opposition.<\/p>

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In Grenada, St. Lucia and St.Kitts, polls show that the people prefer the Privy Council to the CCJ.\u00a0 Trinidad, the headquarters of the CCJ, cannot even muster support from its citizens as more than two-thirds of Trinidadians are opposed to the CCJ.\u00a0 St Vincent recently rejected the CCJ in a referendum.<\/p>

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Clearly the people of the region lack confidence in the CCJ and the governments of the region have not been able to convince the people to buy the product.<\/p>\n

Quite recently, at an outgoing celebration for the\u00a0 Head of the CCJ, Hon Sir Dennis Byron, our Attorney General\u00a0 Hon. Steadroy Benjamin stated that Antiguans have caught the vision and we are now prepared to live the dream.\u00a0 With all due respect, the Attorney General must still be in his slumber and he needs a bit of a reality check to wake him up.\u00a0 His rhetoric was nothing more than a public relation stunt and useless utterance.<\/p>

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Truth be told, regardless what we think of the merits for or against the CCJ, our people are not yet sold on it.\u00a0 Whilst our government might be eager to move to the CCJ, they have not done a good enough job on the required public Education that is necessary.\u00a0 Though they tried, it was simply the wrong approach, at the wrong time and place and there was very little will and purpose from even the government.\u00a0 Outside of Ambassador Clarence Henry, everyone else gave lukewarm acceptance and support and the sessions were in my view a failure and a waste of time.<\/p>\n

The government needs to meet with the opposition and other stakeholders and come up with a common approach and until that happens, even the public education campaign will fail.<\/p>

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I am therefore calling on Prime Minister Hon. Gaston Browne,\u00a0to do not even contemplate wasting our money in a useless referendum when the outcome would be a foregone conclusion.\u00a0 We have better and more important national issues to concentrate on.\u00a0 Let’s tackle those and leave the CCJ alone, at least for now.<\/p>

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CCJ\u00a0 MAYBE IN THE FUTURE BUT WE FAR FROM READY…………………….…by Audley Phillip Most of our governments in the region appear to be backing down or away from the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as its final appellate place.\u00a0 Outgoing Barbados Prime Minister Fuendel Stuart recently made it known that if his Democratic Labour Party wins […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor"],"yoast_head":"\nCOMMENTARY: We are far from ready for CCJ - Antigua News Room<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"COMMENTARY: We are far from ready for CCJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CCJ\u00a0 MAYBE IN THE FUTURE BUT WE FAR FROM READY…………………….…by Audley Phillip Most of our governments in the region appear to be backing down or away from the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as its final appellate place.\u00a0 Outgoing Barbados Prime Minister Fuendel Stuart recently made it known that if his Democratic Labour Party wins […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Antigua News Room\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/antiguanewsroom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-05-22T19:59:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/mlavawteztbj.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Audley-Phillip.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AntiguaNewsRoom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AntiguaNewsRoom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Editor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Editor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/#\/schema\/person\/36cac05ef6398fe56ae3e6317f8535c5\"},\"headline\":\"COMMENTARY: We are far from ready for CCJ\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-05-22T19:59:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-05-22T19:59:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj\/\"},\"wordCount\":486,\"commentCount\":3,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/mlavawteztbj.i.optimole.com\/w:480\/h:480\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Audley-Phillip.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Letters to the editor\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/commentary-we-are-far-from-ready-for-ccj\/\",\"name\":\"COMMENTARY: We are far from ready for CCJ - 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