Published On:Thursday, September 24, 2009

By ALISON LOWE

Tribune Staff Reporter

alowe@tribunemedia.net

A LEADING UK judge claims cases from other countries such as The Bahamas are taking up too much British time and resources, and he would like to see the burden reduced.

Referring to the caseload of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Lord Nicholas Phillip's comments have been seen by some as a sign that Britain may soon make moves to shake off the colonial hangover the institution represents, leaving countries like the Bahamas to find or create another final court of appeal.

Speaking to the Financial Times newspaper, Lord Phillips, President of the UK's new Supreme Court, said he is looking for ways to reduce the "disproportionate" amount of time judges who staff that court also spend on cases coming from outside the UK.

The President questioned whether some Privy Council cases, which have ranged from Jamaican death row appeals to fights over press freedom in Bermuda, needed to be heard by a panel of five of Britain's most senior judges.

Robert Hazell, director of The Constitution Unit at University College London, claims it is a "minor public scandal" that judges in the country's top court spend almost half their time on business "of no interest to anyone in the UK", referring to those cases originating in places like the Bahamas.

One former Governor General told BBC Caribbean that he sees Lord Phillip's message as one telling Caribbean and other Commonwealth countries to "get your house in order and do what you have to do" to prepare for the eventuality that final appeals may in the future no longer be made to the London-based Privy Council.

"The message," said Sir Probyn Innis, former Governor General of St Kitts and Nevis, "is loud and clear."

"Enough is enough is enough. Allow us to get on with our business of modernising our legal system in the United Kingdom."

Yesterday former Attorney General and MP for Fort Charlotte Alfred Sears said the time is "long overdue" for the Bahamas to make a "contingency plan" for the likely eventuality that the Privy Council will not act as the final court of appeal forever.

"I think it's our responsibility to provide the critical institutions of governance for ourselves and the time has come, before the British tell us to go -- a likelihood that will only increase as the demands of their own society call for giving priority to their needs -- that we assume the responsibility for ourselves," said Mr Sears.

He noted that the Bahamas already helps fund the Caribbean Court of Justice despite not using it as a final court of appeal.

Meanwhile, he said, he has no doubt that there is sufficient legal talent within the Caribbean region and the rest of the Commonwealth to deal adequately with any legal issues that may arise.

Many Bahamians have called for the Bahamas to end its dependence on the Privy Council since it ruled in 2006 that it was unconstitutional for the death penalty to be mandatory, perceiving a foreign court to have placed an unfair impediment to convicted Bahamian killers receiving their just deserts.

However, Mr Sears said that this in itself is no argument in favour of a national or Caribbean court as such a court could make the same ruling -- as it did in South Africa.

Nonetheless, he said, he does believe the issue of capital punishment should be decided by a court "in our region", rather than Europe.

PLP leadership contender Paul Moss raised the issue of the final court of appeal publicly during his campaign launch on Tuesday evening, telling his audience that he would bring "unparalleled focus to fixing the administration of justice," culminating in the "removal" of the Privy Council as the final court of appeal.

Yesterday Mr Moss said he feels it is unlikely that Britain will itself move to stop other countries appealing to the Privy Council as he believes it is "an industry" for the country.

However, he said, he strongly believes The Bahamas "should not outsource" its final court of appeal, whether to Britain or the Caribbean Court of Justice.

"The judiciary is part of government. We do not have a foreign prime minister why then should we have foreigners sitting on another arm of government, such as the judiciary," he said.