The debate on removal
published: Saturday | August 2, 2003

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I AM not a politician and I am neither pro nor con the question of removal of appeals to the Privy Council. I only wish the parties to the debate would consider Section 100(5) of the Constitution which reads as follows:-

"A Judge of the Supreme Court shall be removed from office by the Governor-General by instrument under the Broad Seal if the question of the removal of that Judge from office has, at the request of the Governor-General, made in pursuance of subsection (6) of this section, been referred by Her Majesty to the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council under section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act, 1833, or any other enactment enabling Her Majesty in that behalf, and the Judicial Committee has advised Her Majesty that the Judge ought to be removed from office for inability as aforesaid or for misbehaviour."

A similar provision exists in Section 106(6) for the removal of Judges of the Court of Appeal. This means that whether you abolish the appeals to the Privy Council unless you consider removing Section 100(5) and Section 106(6) the umbilical cord to what one writer describes as the "mother country" would still not have been broken. One cannot blow hot and cold by saying that we are going to abolish Appeals to the Privy Council but will remain appeals concerning the removal of Judges to the same Privy Council to which appeals from Jamaica and some other Caribbean countries are made.

I am, etc.,

BERTHAN MACAULAY, Q.C.

28 Duke Street

Kingston

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