CCJ will retain Pratt and Morgan judgment Published: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 In an article of January 10, 2015, under the headline “Rowley: Govt playing politics with crime,” Dr Rowley it seems may have sought to create a public mischief: “Government, he said, should try to meet the conditions of the Privy Council or make the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) the final court of appeal.” The use of the word “or” provides an implication that the CCJ will veer away from the Privy Council (PC) and allow the Pratt and Morgan judgment to be ignored, and hangings will start promptly and be the opiate of those baying for blood and seeing hanging as the solution to end all crimes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Precedent, in law, is important. Therefore, the CCJ will recognise and retain all former decisions of the Privy Council, in fact may also have to follow decisions set by the Privy Council even after the CCJ becomes the final appellate court. Cases are cited from all over the Commonwealth and the CCJ will be no different. Therefore, Pratt and Morgan’s judgment will still stand, and hangings will remain to be virtually impossible unless all appeals are exhausted under five years, which we know is impossible in T&T. In fact, the CCJ itself has said: “The main purpose in establishing this court is to promote the development of a Caribbean jurisprudence, a goal which Caribbean courts are best equipped to pursue. In the promotion of such a jurisprudence, we shall naturally consider very carefully and respectfully the opinions of the final courts of other Commonwealth countries and particularly, the judgments of the JCPC which determine the law for those Caribbean states that accept the Judicial Committee as their final appellate court. In this connection we accept that decisions made by the JCPC while it was still the final Court of Appeal for Barbados, in appeals from other Caribbean countries, were binding in Barbados in the absence of any material difference between the written law of the respective countries from which the appeals came and the written law of Barbados. Furthermore, they continue to be binding in Barbados, notwithstanding the replacement of the JCPC, until and unless they are overruled by this court. Accordingly, we reject the submission of counsel for the appellants that such decisions were and are not binding in Barbados.” Note that any reference to Barbados can also mean a reference to any other Caribbean country, including T&T. What that statement says is that law made by the PC continues to stand, and merely moving to the CCJ is no sinecure that hangings can be resumed willy-nilly. So, changing courts serves no useful purpose except to mislead the masses…until they realise they’ve been gypped once again. Mohan Ramcharan Birmingham UK Letters Source:: Trinidad Guardian The post CCJ will retain Pratt and Morgan judgment appeared first on Trinidad & Tobago Online. #trinidad
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:44:37 +0000
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