Ignorance of history
published: Saturday | August 30, 2003

THE EDITOR, Sir:

UNFORTUNATELY, I am not a professional academic, but I am sufficiently well educated to be convinced that our professional academics, like Peter Espeut and Stephen Vasciannie, are guilty of misleading the public with very damaging ideas, which seem to be due to their ignorance of history.

For example, the relevant departments at the UWI have consistently taught that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is Jamaica's final Court of Appeal, an idea reinforced by the British and foreign press, most of which appear to be totally ignorant of the true function of their own institutions. Since the Privy Council is the Royal Court, the personnel of the Court of St. James, it cannot be true to say that a committee of the Royal court can be a Court of Law.

When the British Empire was at its height, the British Government, confronted with the need to provide a court of appeal for many of its smaller territories, used the JCPC to provide such a service. But at no time was the JCPC the final court of appeal in Britain itself. When Jamaica became a Dominion, (for that is what we chose to become when we became independent, as opposed to being a Republic like Trinidad and Tobago), the JCPC assumed for us the role it has in Britain, to be a judicial review tribunal, to be a check on judicial abuse, at the personal instigation of our sovereign Lady the Queen. Our system is not based on the American idea of the separation of powers. The sovereign is chief executive, chief legislator, (she is the head of Parliament), and chief magistrate. Jamaica's final court of appeal is Gordon House, which has the power to overturn any decision of any court by means of a private member's motion.

In Britain, Mr. Blair's move to alter the office of Lord Chancellor, (which in our context is the President of the Senate), is his latest attempt to bring the British system in line with the American and European systems which enshrine the principle of "separation of powers", which Blair obviously perceives as more "modern" and "better". I believe them to be gravely mistaken, for the danger they seek to avert, namely the development of a tyranny, has not been prevented by the American system, which failed to prevent Hitler in Germany, Stalin in Russia, Pinochet, Peron, Marcos, Castro, Batista, and most recently Charles Taylor in Liberia, from subverting their way to power.

I am, etc.,

R. J. HOPKIN

P.O. Box 4

Kingston 6

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