The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

In 1967 Trinidadian Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul published his brilliant novel, The Mimic Men, which wove a sad narrative about the colonial mindset embedded in many of those colonised by the British.

The protagonist in this fictional story is a politician from a small island in the Caribbean educated in Britain who returns home, finds fame and fortune only to run afoul after a coup and is ostracised back to England. He has an identity crisis. Mimicking the British becomes a means of survival.

After watching the parade of our legal elites fawn and gush over a group of judges from England who got to spend a week in the sunshine away from the cold and damp of London’s winter, I couldn’t help but feel that mimicry is how we convince ourselves that we are doing a good job.

This was not the first time that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a construct of Monarchy that serves, admittedly reluctantly, as our final court of appeal, has met here. About a decade ago they were invited here for what was their first ever sitting outside of London.

With all the fuss and bother that our legal luminaries exerted over them you would think that Her Majesty the Queen herself was in fact presiding over the sittings.

It was nauseating to see. Undoubtedly, it cost us taxpayers a pretty penny of VAT money. For starters, since the government invited them here are we to assume that the government picked up the tab for their premium cabin flights, room and board and sustenance?

And there was no pub lunch for these Lords. Oh no, we splashed out for a black tie dinner on Paradise Island that must have set the Treasury back tens of thousands of dollars for meals and fancy drinks alone. All the while the Chief Justice is begging for money to fix broken copying machines, leaky roofs in his courthouses and to hire a few more staff. No VAT money for that.

What was particularly amusing was that the President of the Court of Appeal, Dame Anita Allen, a learned woman with serious credentials, could not see the irony of sitting with her fellow Bahamian justices in her court bedecked in ceremonial wig and gown (in this heat) all the while welcoming her unrobed guests who appeared quite relaxed in the more appropriate coat and tie.

We in the former colonies tend to mimic the symbols and the trappings of the former colonial masters, long after they have abandoned them. The Brits realized back in 2011 that they had to modernize everything from the monarchy, to their parliament and ultimately their courts. Only in criminal cases are English judges and lawyers required to wear robes and wigs.

The Privy Council meets in the Supreme Court Building in Parliament Square in London. This is a stately heritage site dating back to 1912. It drips pomp and circumstance.

But if you go inside to where the Law Lords actually hear appeals, including those referred from the Bahamas (they don’t hear cases from the UK), you find a more relaxed atmosphere. The judges there don’t don wigs and gowns. They wear business suits, as do the lawyers who plead before them.

Sprawled on the carpet in front of their bench is the ancient motto of England. In old French (the official language of England at the time) the judges look down on the words “Honi Soit Qui Mal y Pense”. Translated it means “Shame on him who thinks evil of it”. You’ll find this inscribed on everything from the British coat of arms to their passports.

Fittingly, as they dispensed with the full regalia of a bygone era, the Lords seem to have thrown down a gauntlet that they don’t care what anyone thinks of their relaxed protocol.

If only we could say the same for their Bahamian hosts who spared no expense to impress the more casual Brits. Perry Christie stopped what he was doing (campaigning) to meet with them. Hubert Ingraham showed up for the big black tie dinner in their honour.

Perhaps, as lawyers, they were obliged to show their respect to the High Court. But a more casual affair out on a verandah by the sea in front of palm trees, with soft rake ’n scape in the background would have been more appropriate. And conch fritters, grouper cutlets, cracked lobster and goombay punch would have been more authentic -- and less expensive.

Just maybe, instead of mimicking what the British used to do, we could start our own legal tradition of dispensing justice in a dignified but less formal manner.

While they are at it, our best and brightest legal minds could come up with a compelling case to ditch the Privy Council and finally embrace the Caribbean Court of Justice. I believe that you will find unanimous agreement for such a move from the now tanned, wined and dined Law Lords who will have stories to tell of the mimic men and women they met in the “colony” this winter.

THE GRADUATE

Nassau,

March 5, 2017.