By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterIN AN unprecedented move, lawyers representing Opposition Leader Edward Seaga and the other claimants who are challenging the Bills to establish the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), will be applying to the Court of Appeal today to grant an order barring Parliament from having a second reading of the Bills. This is the first time in Jamaican history that such a move is being made to block Parliament from reading a Bill.
The first reading of the Bills took place in the Senate on December 12, last year. Notice has been given that the second reading of the Bills was scheduled to take place today in the Senate. The CCJ is to replace the United Kingdom Privy Council as Jamaica's final appellate court.
CONSERVATORY ORDER
The order being applied for is a conservatory order which, if granted by the court, will act as a stay and block the Government from going ahead with the second reading of the Bills.
The application states that the appellants ask the court to exercise its powers to grant a conservatory order restraining the respondents who are the Attorney-General, A.J. Nicholson and Syringa Marshall-Burnett, President of the Senate, from participating in the reintroduction or tabling of the Bills in question. It also seeks to prevent them from proceeding with any further steps for their passage through Parliament otherwise than pursuant to, and in accordance with section 49 of the Constitution. Section 49 of the Constitution deals with alteration of the Constitution.
The second reading was to have taken place on February 13 this year but Mr. Nicholson caused the reading to be postponed pending the outcome of the motion filed by the claimants. The Full Court threw out the motion on a preliminary point and the claimants are appealing the matter.
JAMAICANS FOR JUSTICE
Mr. Seaga, the Jamaican Bar Association, the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights, lobby group Jamaicans for Justice and Leonie Marshall, mother of Patrick Genius who was shot and killed by the police in an alleged shootout, are challenging the constitutionality of the CCJ and are applying for the conservatory order.
The Full Court had upheld legal submissions from Solicitor-General Michael Hylton, Q.C., that it was premature for them to bring the motion because the Bills were not enacted into law. The claimants had contended in the motion that the Bills were unconstitutional because the CCJ would not be entrenched in the Constitution of Jamaica, such as the Court of the Appeal and the Supreme Court, and would not be a permanent court.
The claimants are asking the Court of Appeal to find that the Full Court erred when it threw out their motion without going into the merits of it.
Legal submissions were made by Dr. Lloyd Barnett on behalf of the claimants on Monday and Tuesday.
The Solicitor-General began making submissions yesterday on behalf of the respondents. He is asking the court to uphold the Full Court's ruling.
