Sovereignty Deconstructed and Self-Definition

Abstract: During the 1960s, in the period immediately following Independence, when Commonwealth countries attained independence from Britain, their post-Independence Constitutions retained the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) as their final appellate court. Today with few exceptions, the jurisdiction of the JCPC continues to be limited by the Constitutions of the majority of those Commonwealth countries. Fraught with arguments that the retention of appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is incompatible with the exercise of sovereignty, perspectives are divided between those who are in favour of a Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to replace the appellate jurisdiction of the JCPC, and those who are against on account of fears that such a Court would lack an exceptional calibre of judges and be subject to political manipulation by the Governments of contracting countries. However, the eventual establishment of the CCJ coincided with a spate of death penalty decisions from the JCPC which received unfavourable reaction from the Governments of the Commonwealth Caribbean region and which also had immediate and far-reaching effects. Beleaguered with claims that the regional Governments wanted to create 'a hanging court,' so as to realize their policy decisions, proponents of the Court responded by focusing on the wider issue of forging a Caribbean jurisprudence in the interest of an integrated Caribbean Community. In tandem with these competing views, the concepts of sovereignty and self-definition which are of primordial significance to the discussions are deconstructed, unbundled and revisited. This book is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate.