The Editor, Sir:

This is in reaction to the column by Rev Devon Dick last week:

Dear Rev Devon Dick:

Your piece, 'Patrick Robinson and the Caribbean Court', in The Gleaner of November 20, has an unfortunate inconsistency in it. You speak justifiably proudly of Patrick Robinson's elevation to the presidency of the International Criminal Tribunal and then proceed to mention other persons along with Judge Robinson who you think are suitable to sit on a Caribbean Court.

What perhaps you do not know is that Judge Robinson was driven to take up his original seat as a member of the International Court because he was unable to get an appointment to Jamaica's Court of Appeal despite having indicated his interest to do so for years.

How you jump from your observations about Jamaicans' suitability for high judicial offices in the Caribbean to the racial issue in the United States escapes my understanding except that somehow you try to link it to the choice between the (not stated) white Privy Council and the (not stated) black Caribbean Court.

National pride

You also manage to mix into all this the national pride for our athletes, Bolt, etc, plus a little mix of the Irish through Digicel.

What you have lost sight of completely, however, is that many of us opposed the way in which the Caribbean Court of Appeal was being set up since it compromised the essential independence that a superior court must have. We feared the danger to the court of having the murky hands of the political directorate able to affect the integrity of the court. There is an imputation that those judges who have been appointed to the Jamaican Court of Appeal lack independence, mind and also lack a commitment to principle.

The region has been deprived of his excellence, an excellence that some only feel comfortable in celebrating, provided that he is as far away from the region as possible so as not to exercise it in defence of our rights.

I am, etc.,

RICHARD SMALL

Via Go-Jamaica