THE EDITOR, Madam:
THIS IS an open letter to the Prime Minister.
Dear Prime Minister:
I WRITE to you as a citizen of Jamaica urging that you reverse the course upon which Jamaica was launched when, on Nov. 21, a vote by government Parliamentarians committed the nation to ending its use of the UK Privy Council and subscribing instead to the establishment and use of a Caribbean Court of Justice.
You have in a determined manner resisted many calls for this important proposed change in our legal system to be put to a referendum. You have chosen not to seek the people's permission to undertake this project, which you propose to effect in our name. Instead, you say you will take the action and then go to the people for it to be ratified. This is terribly, terribly wrong.
Speaking in Parliament, you said, as reported by The Gleaner, that when the CCJ exists in the Constitution you will seek to have it entrenched by referendum.
I submit, Mr. Patterson, that that statement is dishonest and that it is illogical. By what standard of reasoning and on what moral authority do you assert that the object of your desire must first, of necessity, exist in the Constitution before you ask the sovereign people to approve and entrench it? How do you come to skip the vital first step of seeking the people's permission to begin the enterprise at all?
Because the law does not require you to hold a referendum is not a sufficient reason for not holding one. This matter is too important for the people not to be consulted beforehand.
Considering that you and the government are paid servants of the people, not masters, isn't it logical, moral and appropriate that you humbly seek the permission of the people before taking an action with whose consequences they and generations to come will have to contend?
It is entirely immaterial that the Privy Council may be used by 50, three or only two Jamaicans in a year. The decisions that proceed from the Privy Council shape and direct the law for all other persons who find themselves in the circumstances upon which the Privy Council has passed judgment. Therefore, a Privy Council decision in a single Jamaican's case has the potential to affect an infinite number of other persons, not only in Jamaica but in all other jurisdictions that accept the guidance of that body.
This question of abandoning the Privy Council and cleaving to a Caribbean Court of Justice can be reduced to a simple construction: The proper conduct of a servant in relation to his master is to seek his master's blessing to act in important matters, not to presume that he may independently commit his master to a grave undertaking, only then advising the master of a fait accompli and ridiculously seeking permission.
You should today remember that you are hired servants and govern yourselves accordingly.
I am etc.,
GILBERT B. DUNKLEY
0501 SW 108th Avenue
Apartment 108
Miami, Florida
Via Go-Jamaica
