For a few years now, well actually for a long time now, Caribbean countries have all been trying to become more and more independent from our past rulers in Britain. I guess we just got pretty much tired of having to answer to these people who have oppressed our forefathers for years for their own benefit and have also raped our inherited countries (also for their own benefit), but either way, we want them gone. We have gotten rid of them for the most part but there are still parts of their rule that still linger, countries like Jamaica still have a governor general (the queen's representative) and still have the Privy Council as the highest court of appeal for our judicial system. In a fairly recent move to try to get rid of them we (CARICOM) have created a replacement for that court in the Caribbean Court of Justice.

For what should be a simple move for our government to make in implementing the CCJ as our highest court of appeal, the government has for years been coming under alot of fire for their decision. People say that, it will be too expensive to setup this court, when there is already an established court that we can just go to England as use. However to me it seems that these people are not completely thinking about this going to England part as the costs involved with this are massive (think plane fare, visa, filing the suit etc... all in English pounds... its now J$146 to one Pound sterling by the way). The other argument has been about the impartialness of the privy council, being based far away from the West Indies are free from all political pressure which it could possibly go under, and also that we wont have the same quality of judges as is available in England, this is a valid point but it should be noted that judges wont come from one island, it will come from many of them, also do we really have no respect for ourselves to believe that we cant be impartial about it and is it being implied that our current legal education system is rubbish?

An article in the gleaner states that prominent attorneys in Jamaica "not yet ready to welcome the CCJ and its judges, simply because he does not believe that the judges on the court now are of the same standard as those at the Privy Council. He said that if the CCJ will replace the long serving judges of the Privy Council, the judges chosen should be of equal or higher calibre. He seems less than impressed with the current set on the CCJ bench". Really now... is it me or is this man dissing himself? Or he doesnt realize it? The judges will be selected will all probably be his comrades who went to school with him or before him and is therefore questioning his own quality of education. I am in complete agreement with David Coore when he states that:

"I have always been a strong supporter. No doubt the Caribbean has produced jurists of the highest quality and we have shown that in the past, in the days of the Federation (of the West Indies), with the Federal Court of Appeal and the quality of that appeal court," he said.

Coore said the quality of the jurisprudence should also not be questioned, as the judgments that he has seen from the CCJ, which has been in operation since 2005 have been well thought out and reasoned.

And I think all other arguments dissing our caribbean court system should go and swivel! How dare you question the quality of your own people. Instead I question the quality of those Privy Council judges, they know nothing about the caribbean, they know nothing about our people, what we go through, our issues and have no right to be setting laws that we have to follow