Let us pray. By whom kings reign and princes decree justice, and from whom alone come of all counsel, wisdom and understanding. We, thine unworthy servants here, gathered together in thy name, do most humbly beseech thee to send down thy heavenly wisdom from above, to direct and guide us in all our consultations. And grown that we having thy fair always before our eyes, and laying aside all private interests, prejudices, and partial affections, the results of all our counsels may be to the glory of thy blessed name, the maintenance of true religion and justice, the safety, honor and happiness of the king, the public will, peace and tranquility of St. Lucia, and the uniting and knitting together of the hearts of all persons and estates within the same, in true Christian love and charity, one towards another, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Good morning, Senators. I have received the correspondence from the speaker of the House of Assembly. Advising that the following motion and bills were passed in the House of Assembly and forwarded to the Senate for its concurrence. Public Finance Management Act resolution of Parliament to borrow for capital or current expenditure, building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 2019 project. Constitution of St. Lucia Amendment, Fisheries Amendment, Money Laundering Prevention Amendment, Money Services Business Amendment. I beg to announce that His Excellency, the Governor-General, has been pleased to ascend the following bill. Agreement for the establishment of a partnership between member states of the Caribbean community and the African Export-Import Bank. I would like to inform Senators that the Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly and member for Miku North is attending the 62nd session of the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, OACPS, Parliamentary Assembly and intersessional meetings of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, European Union, ACPEU, Joint Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels, Belgium from February 25th, sorry, to March 2nd, 2023. The Parliament of St. Lucia in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender Affairs, Inter-American Commission of Women, SIM, and the Country Office of St. Lucia to the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States, the OAS, will be hosting a seminar under the theme, increasing gender parity in political participation and leadership in St. Lucia. That will be taking place Senators tomorrow Friday, 3rd March, 2023, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. We look forward to the participation of all Senators in support of the women who are interested in politics in our country. We also invite the general public to view this seminar live on National Television Network, NTN. Finally Senators, you may be aware of the recent passing of former independent Senator, Henry Phillips, who served for a period of four years, beginning 17th June, 1997. The Office of the Parliament extends condolences to family and friends. Former Senator Phillips served from 1996 under Prime Minister von Loess and in 1997 to 2001 under Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Kennedy Anthony. He and his wife, Geraldine Phillips, were a formidable team in selfless service to community, mentoring, teaching, feeding and entertaining youth of Leclerc. There were great influencers who helped shape lives of many model citizens in Leclerc and in particular St. Lucia in general. Mr. Phillips was a founding member of the Vidbutter Cultural Club, known as VBCC, which was established on August 22nd, 1962. We wish to extend again our condolences to the family and loved ones and in memory of the passing Senator, former Senator, I invite us all to stand for a moment of silence to acknowledge this passing and memory. Thank you Senators. Statements from Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries. Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Investment, Creative Industries, Culture and Information and Leader of Government Business. Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, I wish to lay the following papers standing in my name. Statutory Instruments number nine of 2023, Community Tourism Development, Former Proposer for Partnership Agreement Regulations. Statutory Instrument number 10 of 2022, Legal, Professional, Eligibility, Tier, Tier, 2023, sorry, Tier Marie Austin Order. Statutory Instrument number 11 of 2023, Price Control Amendment number two order. Statutory Instrument number 12 of 2023, Exize Tax Amendment of Schedule 1 number two order. Statutory Instrument number 13 of 2023, Criminal Code Detention of Suspects During Police Investigations, Other Inditable Offence Notice. Statutory Instrument number 14 of 2023, Fiscal Incentives, Lubico 1991 Limited Amendment Order. Statutory Instrument number 15 of 2023, Telecommunications, Aeronautical and Maritime Mobile Satellite Services, Service Exemption, Starlink Internet Services Limited Order. Statutory Instrument number 16 of 2023, Telecommunications Aeronautical Mobile Satellite Service, Exemption, Thales Avionics Inc. Order. Statutory Instrument number 17 of 2023, Telecommunications Aeronautical and Maritime Satellite Service Exemption, The Asset, Inc. Order. Statutory Instrument number 18 of 2023, Price Control Amendment number three order. Statutory Instrument number 19 of 2023, Exize Tax Amendment of Schedule 1 number three order. Statutory Instrument number 20 of 2023, Motor Vehicle and Road Traffic, Designation of Inspectors Order. Motions, Leader of Government Business. Madam President, thank you again. I wish to present the following motion, resolution standing in my name. Whereas it is provided by section 63.1 of the Public Service Finance Management Act, Act 15.01, the Act, that the Minister of Finance may buy an affirmative resolution of parliament, borrow from a bank or other financial institution for the capital of all current expenditure of government. And whereas it is further provided by section 64 of the Act, that money borrowed by the government must be paid into and from part of the consolidated fund. And whereas the Minister of Finance considers it necessary to borrow from the Caribbean Development Bank, the sum of US $5,220,000 to finance the building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 2019 project. And whereas the loan is repayable in 20 years after the grace period of three years from the loan agreement date. In 80 equal or approximately equal and consecutive quarterly installments. And whereas the loan payments commence on the first day of January, the first day of April, the first day of July and the first day of October, in each year after a grace period of three years following the date of the loan or on such a later date that the bank may specify in writing. And whereas interest is payable, A, at a variable rate of 5.16% per annum on the amount of the principal is boost and outstanding from time to time, B, on the first day of January, the first day of April, the first day of July and the first day of October in each year, commencing after the date of the first disbursement of the loan. Be it resolved that parliament authorizes the minister of finance to borrow from the Caribbean Development Bank, the sum of US $5,220,000 to finance the building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 2019 project. Be it further resolved. A, that the loan is repayable in 20 years after a grace period of three years from the loan agreement date in 80 equal or approximately equal and consecutive quarterly installments. That B, the loan payments commence on the first day of January, the first day of April, the first day of July and the first day of October in each year after a grace period of three years following the date of the loan or on such date due, on such later due date as the bank may specify in writing. That C, interest is payable one at a variable rate of 5.16% per annum on the amount of the principal disburse and outstanding from time to time. Two, on the first day of January, the first day of April and the first day of July and the first day of October in each year commencing after the date of the first disbursement of the loan. Madam President, if I may offer further explanation on this motion while I await the assistance from the judge. Madam President, before I proceed to provide some additional explanation on this motion, permit me leave to, on behalf of the sporting fraternity, my colleagues, the government and the well wishes of our very own Julian Alfred to extend my heartfelt and sincere congratulations to her for elevating us one more time as a nation. We've heard the stories of Julian and we've heard about the sub-7, 6.97 second performance a couple of weeks ago and that is not something that happens very often. So we want to continue to congratulate and exalt performances like this. And this further accentuates the potential and the place that we take on the whole stage as St Lucians and Caribbean people. Madam President, when I get to the motion on the amendment to the constitution, I will say a little more on Caribbean excellence and how we should celebrate our people. Madam President, to the motion, this motion here is basically asking to authorize the government to borrow 5.22 million U.S. or just about 14 million EC to finance building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the very well-known by now and the very serious coronavirus 2019, what we call the COVID-19 project. Madam President, we have by now gotten very familiar with not only the presence but the consequences and the implications of countries having to deal with COVID. And while at this time we walk around without our masks and we feel a lot more comfortable going to a fit, going to church and moving around, we must not forget that COVID is still with us. New variants are popping up all over the world and as a small island in the Caribbean, especially as a tourist destination, we have to constantly be reminded that the COVID threat is still imminent. Madam President, we are aware of the impact that it has caused us as a small country and how it has caused the health sector to evolve and all the various measures that have to be put in place. We now have a situation where our premier health facility in the North, this Victoria Hospital used to be, had been converted into a polyclinic, not polyclinic but a respiratory facility just to accommodate patients with COVID. Madam President, we are aware of some of the actions that successive governments have had to take to deal with it, the disruptions in schools, the business sector, the entertainment sector, everyone, the farmers, the fishers, everybody who in some way or another had to interact and move around has been impacted. And so the challenges of COVID remain as a country. The variants begin to mutate, they continue to mutate, they continue to create new challenges. There are all types of new ones, names that I can't, even if I have to tell the Senate, to probably spend the whole day because they keep, this is a very fluid situation. And so countries like ours have to continue to build our resilience and to continue to build our capacity, to deal with further threats as well as ensuring that the other health facilities, the other health service providers are strengthened because a resilient health system is your best opportunity or your best chance should there be a resurgence of another variant. And so Madam President, not only should we get the borders but we should also ensure that there is an improvement in the primary healthcare facilities. All of our health centers, Madam President, around the island need to be able to respond to the issues that will free up the other facilities to allow for our health systems to be able to provide the services they need. If, for example, you have a Cassius Health Center that has to be dealing with an overflow of patients, if that health center and the services it provides is beefed up, then it will not be necessary for the population to be flogging, going up to OKEU or create a bottleneck anywhere else. And so some of these funds will be used to continue to strengthen those primary healthcare facilities. Madam President, the funding is also going to be used, some of it for building our capacity and the urgency and the quickness in which we respond to situations. For example, by purchasing ambulances. I mean, we never have enough. We have sports events that require the use of the ambulance while there may be an emergency elsewhere. So we have to improve our capacity to respond speedily to our health needs. Also, I think we also had an example where the Minister for Health referred to the use of the funds, some of the funds to equip the National Lab. And that is important. We have to be able to be more efficient in being able to get the results of tests available to patients and so that they can deal with the issues. Our health centers are polyclinics. The LaClaire Health Center, the Grossly Health Center. Some of those monies will be used to improve the services there. We have a very serious area that most of us don't talk about, that came about because of the impact of COVID, is the psychological impact that it had on our people in this country. And I am no social science expert, but I'll tell you, Madam President, every time there is a pandemic or a disaster or something that the country or the people are not used to, and it comes as a shock, there is always the aftershock, the impact. People's psyche are damaged. People had to be home and not able to go out for so long. And we saw all the ripple effects of that. And people are still all over the world recovering from the psychological impact of COVID. And that is why we have to provide additional assistance in that area in our health system, as well as improving the work at the existing respiratory hospital, VH. Because VH is still a very important service provider, especially in the north of this country. Madam President, just by way of example, these are some of the reasons why we are here to ask for the authorization to approve for the Prime Minister, the government to be able to borrow that sum of money. So I hope that we as a nation see it fit and that we will provide support for that move and that it will benefit the various service providers and the various components of the health sector for all of us. I thank you, Madam President. Senators, question is be it resolved that parliament authorizes the Minister of Finance to borrow from the Caribbean Development Bank the sum of US 5.2 million to finance the building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 2019 project? Be it further resolved that, A, the loan is repairable in 20 years after the grace period of three years from the loan agreement date in 80 equal or approximately equal and consecutive quarterly installments? B, the loan payments commence on the first day of January, the first day of April, the first day of July and the first day of October in each year after a grace period of three years following the date of the loan or on such later date due date as the bank may specify in writing. C, interest is payable, at a variable rate of 5.16% per annum on the amount of the principal disbust and outstanding from time to time. And two, on the first day of January, the first day of April, the first day of July and the first day of October in each year commencing after the date of the first disbustment of the loan. Senator Shalloway. Good morning and thank you, Madam President, for recognizing my need to just shortly lend my support to the resolution before us. And in so doing, I simply want to indicate that I applaud the government of St. Lucia under the leadership of Hon. Philip J. Pierre as well as the minister responsible for health on seeing the need to build resilience in the health sector. Madam President is always important for us to learn from our experiences and to learn from the historical events in our lifetime. And if there is one point in our life where we had not yet recognized the importance of a properly functioning health care system, I think that it was punctuated during the COVID-19 period. And so it is not enough for us as a government and as a people to simply have gone through that trying period and to still be suffering from the effects of COVID-19 both on lives and livelihoods, Madam President, but to understand that it is something made perhaps not in the same manner that can happen again. And very often we hear people say that we are resilient people, but resiliency does not come by a simply sitting around and doing nothing. And so I think that it's important as a government that priority is given to building resilience and beefing up the health system so that we can one be able to replace and revamp some of the things that have deteriorated, but also to build capacity to ensure that in case there is another shock like what we had with COVID-19 that we are better able and better placed to provide proper health care to our people. Madam President, of course it is no surprise that the government of the Senegal Labor Party is a government that is now doing just that. The government of the Senegal Labor Party is the government that started the journey of universal health care on this island. To have given diabetics and hypertensives and so on, the ability to be able to access health care more easily and at a more affordable rate because it has always understood that a healthy nation is a well-finished nation. And so of course we look at some of the things that will be done and we look at some of the things that have already been done. The continuation of universal health care and it is very sad, Madam President, that I stand here today. We still speak of universal health care as something that we have not yet attained because from the start of this project on the previous Senegal Labor Party administration, when the administration was changed, the idea was shelved because I do not think that the other side really understands the importance of having a proper health care system that could meet the needs of its people. We have an aging population, Madam President. We have young persons, Madam President, and everybody relies on a proper health care system. And so we have seen under this administration that there has been a continued thrust to revamp the idea of universal health care, Madam President. For almost six years, we spoke about health insurance and something that always baffled me about the health insurances. And I am not standing here today saying that health insurance is a bad thing. Many of us, and perhaps maybe in the minority, but a lot of us have health insurance and we understand the importance of having health insurance. But as a country, if we go the route of ensuring that every citizen has health insurance but no proper access to health facilities, we do not have proper wellness centers. We do not have equipment at our hospitals. What then really becomes the value of being able to access it but having nothing to access. And so, like I indicated, this government has seen the need to continue along the path of universal health care. And we see around the island that there has been a move to designate particular wellness centers, for example, as centers of excellence for particular health issues. So for example, one of the most recently opened health care, primary health care facilities, the Mikwood Wellness Center, for example, Madam President, has been designated as a center of excellence or chronic disease. And I think it's important that sort of structure because what it will inevitably do if it works in the way it's intended to work is to bring to the fore the importance of focusing on the ability to zoom in on these particular health conditions to allow people to become more proactive in dealing with their health care in ensuring that they remain as healthy as they can be to ensure that there is not excessive strain on the resources of the health care facilities. So Madam President, I would like to applaud the move by government to ensure that the many people in the health care sector who have made the most of COVID-19 COVID-19 are the ones who have also made the most of COVID-19, and the most directly against the health care sector. So it should be done for Madam President to make the most of COVID-19 against the people in the health care sector, to make the most of COVID-19 against the concerns of the health care sector. So I will applaud the move by the government and of course, I would say to the government Thank you, Madam President. I just want to thank the colleague, Senator, for supporting the motion and hope that the objective for which it was set out will be achieved. I also think that the some of the questions that were raised regarding the handling of COVID will be answered because now that we know more about the virus, now that we have understood the implications of such a pandemic, strengthening our health sector is only going to allow us to be more prepared should there be a reoccurrence. So once again, thank you, colleague Senators, and I look forward to the passing of this piece of legislation of the approval of this. Senators, the question is be it resolved that Parliament authorizes the Minister of Finance to borrow from the Caribbean Development Bank the sum of U.S. $5.2 million to finance the building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 2019 project? Be it further resolved that, A, the loan is repairable in 20 years after the grace period of three years from the loan agreement date in 80 equal or approximately equal and consecutive quarterly installments, B, the loan payments commence on the first day of January, the first day of April, the first day of July, and the first day of October in each year after a grace period of three years following the date of the loan or on such a later due date as the bank may specify in writing. C, interest is payable by 1 at a variable rate of 5.16% per annum on the amount of the principal disboost and outstanding from time to time and 2, on the first day of January, the first day of April, the first day of July, and the first day of October in each year commencing after the date of the first disbursement of the loan. I now put the question, as many as are of that opinion, C, I, as many as are of a contrary opinion, C, no, I think the ayes have it, the ayes have it. Bills, Leader of Government Business. Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, I beg to move for the second reading of a bill shortly entitled Constitutional St. Lucia Amendment. Madam President, since this is the second reading, I need now to be able to expand further. Madam President, if there is one reason I had to be here today, you may have heard my voice not sounding as you know it because I have not been 100%, but if there is one reason that I felt I had to be here today was because of the passage of this bill or this amendment, the amendment of this Constitution. Madam President, it is indeed for me as a young, still I feel I'm very young, as a young man in the small island of St. Lucia, coming out of the community of the Rousseau in Microsoft. I cannot remember other than 1979 when I think I was in grade one during the year of independence, any time between 1979 and 80 where we have come together as a country to amend or make an amendment to our Constitution. And so for me this is a very historic day and this is a very unique opportunity. Not very often in our electoral history that we usually have a two-thirds or three-quarter majority. And so this is also very significant. And so Madam President, for me personally, it's a very historic and special day and I'm very proud to be standing in this Senate as a leader of government business to have the privilege of presenting this bill or amendment on behalf of a government that has pledged that it is going to ensure that it represents the interests of the people. So Madam President, as I look across I am a little saddened that I do not see the opposition. I do not see the opposition, the seats are empty and I'm just hoping that they will not miss out on the opportunity to give their support and their approval to this historic event. But I move on Madam President and state that this process has been brewing for a very long time. Some of us here may have been teenagers or school when the agreement was established between the CCJ, sorry when the CCJ had signed the agreement that I think started in the term of the Caribbean Court of Justice that is, in the term of former Prime Minister Dr. Anthony, way back in 2001. And I think it was actually February the 14th. That's interesting when that was signed. And then in 2014 the Caribbean Court of Appeal, the opinion was sought and they advised that there was no need for a referendum which I've heard a lot about these days. All kinds of pronunciations and all kinds of on that particular amendment. As I said, Madam President, it's not often that you have a two-thirds majority as a country that gives you a mandate, a very strong mandate to do things that are necessary. And as the Constitution being a very sacred and highest piece of law or the highest law of the land, you can't really touch it and play with it as you wish, unless you have the authority given to you or the numbers given to you by the people who elect you to do so. And so Madam President, I think after 44 years of independence this is only our second amendment to the Constitution. And it is coming just about 18 years after the CCJ had been established. So we might be a little late in the game, whereas some may think that we're going into it now, we may be a little late in the game because there are other countries who have already said the precedent and have led the way and they have commanded us in the process. Madam President, what is the justification for us going that way? I think there are a list of reasons why a country 44-year-old in terms of its independence, a 44-year-old nation, can say to itself that now I am mature enough and I am able to be able to decide who makes the final decisions about what happens in the justice system in my country. I think after 44 years, I think some of us in here are not even 44 yet and we think we're big enough to make certain decisions. We have some of us who are not 44, have families, we have made correct choices, we have made a lot of big decisions that have influenced the way our life has turned out. And if by 44 you can't make those decisions, I think something might be wrong. And so Madam President, I think as a nation we have reached a stage where we ought to be able to say to the rest of the world and to our colleagues in the region that we have a decision, we can decide who makes certain decisions on our behalf. And so I think St. Lucia has seen the dawn of a very important day. Now in addition to that, Madam President, let us look at the another reason why I think our country, our people in this country, gave us a very clear indication that they wanted us as a government to do things on their behalf. If we go to the page 2, page 28 of the Labour Party manifesto during the elections of 2021, the then campaigning party sought the mandate of the people. We went to the people and we sought their mandate. We said to them that if elected, we will move away from the previous council and we will be moving to the CCJ as our final court of arbitration. We said it to the people, we said it loud and clear. They heard us and they agreed with us and gave us a mandate of 13, 4 plus 2, which is equating to 15, 2 to be able to do so. That is the highest mandate the people of St. Lucia have ever given us since 1997. And so if St. Lucia has made that decision then, we are now saying to them today you gave us a mandate to do what we asked of you or asked you to give us permission to do. And that profound mandate was given to us on the 26th of July 2021 and we are here today to fulfill that for the people of this country. Madam President, we heard the Governor General's thrown speech on March 29th, where again it was reiterated that this policy was very clear that we had every intention as a government to implement it. The Prime Minister followed up in his 26th of May budget address and again reiterated that that was clearly the government's policy intention. Madam President, we have heard that outside of just our country, we have gotten the blessings as we should have sought from the British, the Foreign Commonwealth Office of Britain and the Britain Foreign Secretary, when written to by the Prime Minister, responded in the affirmative, gave us their blessings and said, listen, it is your right, you have made the request, this is your decision, we have no issues with it, you need to do what you need to do, do what you need to do.  Madam President, it is very clear that the mandate given to us by the people has to be fulfilled. Now, we've heard some arguments and as a government we are responsible, we do not ignore what the people say to us. Even if the people who are saying it may not be saying it for all the right reasons, but we listen to what people have said and we've heard some arguments. And one of the arguments, Madam President, is that the judges who may be selected in terms of the selection of this selection process, because they may be from the region and the region is small and people know each other, that there may be some concern about them not being independent. Madam President, I remind the Senate again that as a solution, I am very distilled by that kind of notion. I believe, Madam President, that we have a certain, we need to build a certain level of confidence in what belongs to us and what is ours. I believe that the Regional Legal and Judicial Services Commission has to have, to be given some credit and have some integrity. Because the people who serve there, Madam President, many of them are outstanding sons and daughters of our region. I mean, we have a West Indies cricket team, we have all other entities that have made us proud as a region. I mean, what is it that, what is it we fear about the integrity and the ability of the people in our region to deliver on our behalf? If we are to grow, we have the University of the West Indies, Madam President. And by the way, I am a very proud alumni, I am a very proud graduate of the University of the West Indies. I am a product of the University of the West Indies, no other, you know, and I'm very, I have done other post-academic studies thereafter, but I think the most prestigious, the most important piece of accolade or paper that I receive in my academic pursuit is the one that I received from the University of the West Indies. And you know why, Madam President? Because this is one of the most reputable learning institutions in the world. I think it's somewhere in the top five, and it has been there for a while, and it continues to remain there because of the quality that it presents, that it offers. And when I hear people beginning to question the ability and the integrity of the people that represent me, the people of our region, the great West Indians, the great Caribbean people who have fought hard for what we enjoy today, it offends me, Madam President. I don't have the voice to express how I feel today, but I wish I did. It offends me, so it's offensive to me as a Caribbean, a young Caribbean man. And so I think it communicates a certain sense of mistrust and a certain sense of, you know, suspicion and self-doubt. I even want to bother and self-heat. What is wrong with us doing, taking care of our own business? In 1979, when we decided to become an independent nation, should we say, should we have said that we cannot do it when Sir John Compton led this country into independence? That's Sir John Compton that some of those people are always talking about? We did it, and we did it well, and we are proud that we've done it 44 years later. We need to stop this, Madam President. They are young people in this country who are looking for the identity of the, they're looking for identity, they're looking for something to associate with, to be able to say that I come from a country where there is something about us that is different. I come from a region where there is something about us that is different. And there we are, our own people, looking for every reason to doubt it. I take offense to that, Madam President. Madam President, in addition to all the discussion, I think there is one thing we must not miss in this entire conversation. The fundamental principle on which this whole amendment is based is to achieve one thing, and that is access to justice. Access to justice, because we know, and it has been brought up several times, from all different angles, we know that there are circumstances in this country where some of our people, because of their circumstances, believe, feel, and may very well be justified in thinking and feeling that they do not receive proper justice, or they do not have proper access to justice. And this is a fundamental principle under which this amendment is being made. Madam President, I am informed that in the last 16 years, we've only had 17 cases that have been brought before the Privy Council. There must be a reason why it's only about one case per year. And we've heard the arguments about the cost of that. There are cost implications to justice. Justice comes with a cost. And if you're not on the same plane filled with someone else, and you are denied justice because you cannot afford it, it is in my view, it is in violation of your constitutional right as a human being. Madam President, let me draw an example from where I live, the area I'm from. You may have heard, Madam President, of this family in Diga, Mikusouth, whose houses were demolished because of a court ruling. And this family has, I have a personal relationship with them, because I've been there, I've spoken to them, we've tried to assist. This family, after many years of court battles, they remain convinced that the judgment was unfair. Now, it is not for me to rule or to opine on whether a judge was right or wrong. That is out of line for me. But a family who believes, or people who believe that whatever judgment was passed was unfair to them, they have a right, they have a right to be able or to feel that they have some form of recourse. And so, in the magistrates court, they felt that it was unjust. The High Court, the Court of Appeal, I see the CCJ being that medium for people like this, the Doxy family, in the community of Diga. And Madam President, I will say it in Creole. Madam President, I respect that. But for me, it is always the case that you speak and you speak, you speak, you do not know how to deal with the court, how to deal with the justice. You know how to deal with different cases and then decisions that are not fair to you and then it is not right. Well, if this world, the High Court, the Court of Magistrates, the Court of Appeal, but if this world wants to make an effort to deal with justice, and then pay, Madam President, do you know the cost implications of even being able to file for, to apply to the CCJ? I'm told it's anywhere between 60,000 and 130,000 EC dollars. The Privy Council, sorry, the Privy Council, to be able to just, just apply it's about 60,000 EC dollars. You have to travel, you know the cost of a ticket to the UK? You have to get accommodation. $420,000. Madam President, we believe that justice is to be served to everyone and everyone has an equal right and opportunity to receive justice irrespective of your circumstances. And so I think that before we begin to make noise about, you know, some of the things that I've heard, we need to be thinking about what the implications are for the people who really need the justice that needs to be disbursed. Madam President, not only that people, ordinary people may be able to afford justice through the CCJ, there's also the possibility that they can apply because if the circumstances can be proven to be, you know, to not allow them to be able to afford that they can, their costs and or their fees can be waived. Could you have said that to the Privy Council? Now, our country is part of a group of countries in Karecom and they have put together a trust fund of about $100 million. And that was set up to basically run the CCJ. St. Lucia pays its dues tune of about $2.1 million to that particular fund. And as I mentioned, if we cannot even have one case per year, you know what that tells us? We're basically paying for a service that we're not accessing. So we have to make use of that service. Now, I also believe that there's an argument that we've not heard much about and I want to present it this morning, that the CCJ really also can serve to help our local justice system really get its wills going. We know about the backlog of cases and I think some of those can get stuck there because there's nowhere else to go. Appeal and appeal and appeal. And so if we can, you know, we can get these cases out of the way and we can free that up and get the wills of justice to move a little faster in our local circumstances. Now, Madam President, on the argument of whether we are good enough as a region and whether we should trust people because politicians can put their hand in this and so on, I was not able to be in the chamber but I followed the debate and I saw a group of students from the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College. I think there was a reason why they were there. Law students and we have to be very careful what kinds of messages we implicitly communicate to our young people when we make decisions as leaders. As a former educator, we sometimes speak to ourselves. You know, we have our arguments and we engage each other at that level but we do not always pay attention to what the subliminal messages that are reaching the delicate young minds of our intellects. These young people who are sitting there at Sir Arthur Lewis, Madam President, they are not just ordinary young people. They are intellects. They are bright, smart young people who are reading beyond what we're just saying. And I think if we are not careful, we can create doubt in the mind and mistrust in the mind about what we are doing and them themselves will begin to doubt themselves. How do we know, Madam President, that one of these young people who are sitting there on Tuesday is not going to be our next Chief Justice of the CCJ? How do we know that one of these young people does not have an aspiration to become a judge on the panel? How do we know that? And because we begin to create those doubts in the minds of the people that are paying attention, we may be creating a problem for the generation to come.  Let us be very mindful that young people are paying attention. They may not say anything, but they're paying attention. I'm a father, I have children and sometimes they come back two days to tell you something you said and you didn't realize you said it or something they picked up from something you said that you didn't even mean to communicate. So we have to be very careful. Madam President, we got historical context, we got explanations and we got a number of things that can help us understand better why this move is the better move to make. And I heard and I'm still hearing the conversation about we should have this before we do it, we should go and one of the keywords now is a referendum. Well, I didn't hear about a referendum when we were still a colony and we decided to become an associated state. I didn't hear it. I didn't hear a call for a referendum when we decided to move from an associated state to become an independent nation. I didn't hear it. When our forefathers were brought across to work as slaves in this part of the world, there was no referendum. They were just taken and brought here. They never had an opportunity to have any referendum. Nobody asked for it. And so now that we are making a decision on our own behalf, that we are entitled to make, that we've got clearance from the legal institutions that can provide a legal opinion, that we have decided to do on our own accord, that the people have given us 15 out of the 17 seats in this house or in this parliament to do, we conveniently remember. And I wish the opposition was there. I would have told them one thing and I was probably sad for the benefits that even the founding father, the founding father, man, I have a lot of respect for, dead and alive. Still, family is still very good friends of mine. I have a lot of respect for him. Even the founding father, the late Sir John, has made public declarations, public statements about his support for it, support for the CCG. So he must be turning in his grief, however he is, when he hears of what is going on. And so, Madam President, I want to finally refer to the Constitution. The Constitution itself, under Section 41, and I think it's of Section 78, makes it very clear which amendments require a referendum for a country, for us, and which ones can be made with the majority, the two thirds of the three quarters. The Constitution is very clear, elucidally clear about which conditions or which conditions should exist that will dictate that they must be a referendum and which ones you may do by using the majority. And Madam President, that particular decision is one of those that the Constitution is clear about that you can, in fact, make amendments with the majority of the, that we have. And so, we believe as a government that we will never, we will never knowingly, deliberately, or even, and when we're not sure we'll seek an opinion, we will not violate the Constitution. We will not. So we are in obedience to the Constitution with that particular move. And I have every confidence that one of these days when I am a grandfather, my grandchildren, hopefully I'll be there to hear them say, we'll be remembering that during the final week of February in 2023, the St. Lucia Liberal Party government, on behalf of the people of this country, delivered to them a decision or made a decision on their behalf that we are making the Caribbean Court of Justice our final appellate court. And so, Madam President, having said that, I want to rest now and look forward to the passage of this piece of legislation. Senators, the question is that the Constitution of St. Lucia Amendment Bill be read a second time. Senator Lee. Thank you, Madam President. Before I start, Madam President, allow me the liberty or the latitude to wish the students of St. Mary's College were taking part in their annual sports meet all the best today. And members of presentation house, a little more luck than the rest. Madam President, I rise this morning to discuss the Amendment of Constitution Bill which is aimed at replacing the appellate jurisdiction of the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice. Allow me to declare my hand from the outset. I am a fervent and unapologetic supporter of the Caribbean Court of Justice. And while I will try my best to remain as dispassionate and as even-hand as I tend to be when I'm presenting with this chamber, in the event that my passions, you know, get the better of me, please understand. I believe, Madam President, that perhaps it is destiny that I am here this morning to take part in this vote because so much of my life, so much of my professional life has revolved around the Caribbean Court of Justice. I'm a child of independence. I grew up in the wake of independence. I was fortunate enough to be around persons who were actually directly involved in the independence struggle. And so I was acutely aware that we had not completed our move to independence, that there were still steps that we have to take. One I noticed is the, and Madam President, I think we are even further behind than we should be. We need to update the photographs in the chamber. But one obviously is the move away from the monarchy. And the other would have been to replace the appellate jurisdiction of the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice. I was then fortunate enough to study at the University of the West Indies, which is one of our premier and perhaps the exemplar of Caribbean unity in action, that light rising in the West. And in particular, I studied at the Cable Campus, again in the figurative and literal shadow of Sir Frank Worrell, who's buried on campus, the first Black captain of the West Indies team, that other exemplar of Caribbean unity in action. I was fortunate again to study under some very astute and very learned professors, many of whom exposed the need for us as part of the development of a Caribbean, a proper Caribbean civilization to move away from the Privy Council and to the CCJ. When I became a professional, I started in private practice, but then moved into the Tony General's chambers. And again, I was very fortunate whilst there to work on the advisory opinion. Well, I didn't work on the advisory opinion. I worked on the application to the Court of Appeal for an advisory opinion dealing with the interpretation of section 41.7, which has clarified the fact that we do not require a referendum to move to the CCJ. And so I'm saying this sort of to lay the background for what I'm about to say, because it is going to be very personal to me. It is part of my profession. It's going to impact myself. It's going to impact my clients directly. This is not an abstract conversation for me, but I'm not trying to ascribe any importance to myself. I just want to make the point that my position on the Privy Council and the replacement by the CCJ is not a knee-jerk response to anything. It is the process of a long studying and reflection upon our position as St. Lucians, our positions as Westinians as a whole, the process of decolonization, the process of independence, and more fundamentally, the process of judicial hierarchy and jurisprudence. And so my position is a studied one. I'm here today to complete the process of work that began in 1979 with St. Lucia's independence and continue through my legal training and my professional experience by supporting the move of this amendment, which will allow the move from the Privy Council to the Caribbean Court of Justice or CCJ as I'll say for short. I'm a little disappointed that the opposition is not here because for me, this is such an important step that really and truly it should be a unified approach. I heard the leader of government business say that there was no referendum for independence and that is true. He went a little further and said there was no call for a referendum at that time. But history, as I quickly learned, is not without a sense of irony. In 1978-79, the tables were in fact reversed and the St. Lucia Labor Party was the one that was demanding a referendum at the time before the move to independence. But time moves on and we learn. Again, for many years now, as I said, I've been a promoter and supporter of the CCJ and so I've had numerous conversations with persons as to what the CCJ is, why we should move to it and what the impact on St. Lucia would be. And in those discussions, certain themes and certain things keep repeating. One seems to be, and I heard it even this morning in my conversations with the reporters on coming to the chamber, that persons don't seem to understand what the CCJ is, what it's for and why we should have one. And in some ways that is a failing, I believe, of our education system. Because from 2005, St. Lucia has in fact been subject to the jurisdiction of the CCJ as part of the original jurisdiction of that court. And so the fact that persons seem not to understand even that is again extremely disappointing to me. It means that persons either have not taken the opportunity to educate themselves about the CCJ or the systems that ought to be teaching them about it have failed completely. So the CCJ, if you allow me a little bit of latitude again, Madam President, to speak more widely. The Caribbean Court of Justice was established by an agreement signed as the leader of government business indicated, an agreement signed in 2001, I believe the 14th of February, Valentine's Day for some reason, I know why they chose that day, as a two-part court, so to speak. We have the original jurisdiction, which is the jurisdiction to interpret the Treaty of Sagaramas, the Treaty establishing the Caribbean community and the Caribbean Common Market. Perhaps the best example of that jurisdiction in place or in action, sorry, is the decision in Shaddik Maheri versus Barbados, which if persons don't understand, was a decision by the CCJ emphasizing that the right of freedom of movement is a fundamental right of all persons in the Caribbean. You have a right to go to any of the other Karakam countries, not necessarily to work, but to enter and to spend time. And regardless of whether the country has put in place the necessary local legislation to give you, well, to operationalize that right, you have that right and you ought to be able to enjoy it. You also have what we are now speaking about, the appellate jurisdiction of the Court of Justice. Our legal system is a hierarchical one. We have the magistrate's courts at the bottom, the High Court above them, the Court of Appeal above that, and then what's known as a final Court of Appeal, which right now is the Privy Council. So you have a right for most persons, they matter will enter either the magistrate's court or the High Court level.  And I'll come to the significance of that just now. So what we are doing essentially is removing the Privy Council at the top of our legal system and replacing it with the Caribbean Court of Justice, a court which is based in Trinidad. And I would encourage anyone who is curious about the Court of Justice, what it is, how it operates, to go to ccj.org. There is a wealth of information on there. All the decisions given by the Caribbean Court of Justice are on there. Speeches given by the judges at various functions are on there. The Caribbean Court of Justice publishes an annual report where they lay bare the operations of the court for the previous year. So the court is not just speaking transparency. It is actively practicing it. They have a very, very, very active press call as well. And if you contact them with any specific requests for information, they are quite willing to assist. Because one of the priorities of the Caribbean Court of Justice was to ensure that as part of the Caribbean society, as part of the Caribbean fabric of Caribbean society, that they provide ready information on the operation. So although we always hear that judges are loose and stay away from the public, they are making an effort to make sure that to the extent that they can, they provide ready information. So I hope that at least puts the court in some sort of context. The concern then is often expressed that, oh, this is an attempt first to hang people. This is an attempt first to appoint judges that the politicians can influence. This is an attempt to gain control over the final court of appeal in some sort of way. But I wish to reassure persons that in the framing and the design of the Caribbean Court of Justice, that very threat or very risk was taken into consideration. And so concrete steps were taken to isolate and insulate the court from any form of influence. Not just political, we have economic influence. And I don't know how many persons in society pay very close attention to the US Supreme Court. But it is a fascinating body in a number of ways, good and bad. But one of the things and one of the criticisms is that there is obviousness over political influence on that court. The process of selection of judges to the US Supreme Court is done by the Senate. It is done by a political body. The questioning is often geared at ascertaining from the judges their political leanings. You also have a tremendous economic influence. So they are perhaps an extreme example of what happens where you have that level of influence playing on the court. So let's just oppose that against how the Caribbean Court of Justice operates. First of all, to ensure that the court is not beholden to anyone, you have the establishment of a trust fund that has been bandied around and persons understand that 100 million US was put aside prior to the formation of the court to help fund the court's operations. Now what does that mean in practice? Some may have heard or may not have heard instances of judges who have been appointed at high court and court, well not so much court of appeal level, high court level particularly, who get assigned to a country that's not their own. They go off, get ready to work. One month passes, no salaries paid. Two months passes, no salaries paid. Three months pass, no salaries paid.  You have a living expenses that you're having to meet out of your own pocket. And so the power of the purse is a very strong influence that governments sometimes seek to exert over the judiciary. Establishing the trust fund removes that possibility entirely. And just for the information, the trust fund is administered by a board of trustees which is comprised of the following persons, the Secretary General of the Caribbean community, the Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, the President of the Insurance Association of the Caribbean, the Chairman of the Associations of Indigenous Banks of the Caribbean, the President of the Caribbean Institute of Chartered Accountants, the President of the Organization of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Associations, the Chairman of the Conference of Heads of the Judiciary of the Member States of the Caribbean Community, the President of the Association of Industry and Commerce, the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce, and the President of the Caribbean Congress of Labor. Now you'll notice a few things about that. Obviously these are going to be persons of proper standing, but again it's rooted in Caribbean-ness. We are not looking at individual institutions or individual countries to put forward persons, but rather it is based on collective action as much as possible. And these are the persons who in their own independent judgment decide how to invest the fund, how much funds to withdraw from it, and to help support the operation of the CCJ. So the CCJ is endowed with its own money, which it controls, it determines its own budgets, it determines how those budgets are spent, and again the annual returns to which I made the reference make complete disclosure with regard to the operation of the budget of the CCJ as well as the trust fund. So you have the operations of the CCJ being instillated from political influence and economic influence because sometimes if you are a wealthy business person, and again if we watch the news, if we watch any type of TV program really that speaks to justice, a complaint is often that the rich there's justice for the rich and justice for the poor. Again the design of the CCJ is made or was in design sorry to take this into consideration and ensure that nobody can say that you know well I've sponsored this judge, I've put them, given them a vacation to go here, or I've sponsored even a photocopying machine for example for the office. Things that we know happens in smaller and smaller countries. On the other end now you have the Regional Judicial Legal Services Commission, which is responsible for the appointment and removal if necessary of judges. I'm sure we're all familiar with the Public Service Commissions and the Judicial Legal Service Commission which operate locally. This is a regional version of the same thing. So you have an independent body who is responsible for the selection and appointment of judges. Politicians have no role and I can't state that too emphatically. Politicians have no role in the appointment of the Judicial Legal Services Commission. The politicians only come into play in terms of appointing the president. At which point there must be unanimity. So even then again it's not a situation that one head of government will have on use way. All 12 members and this applies to members whether they have acceded to the appellate jurisdiction or not have a say. So even right now Senusha has a say in who the president of the CCJ is. But we do not determine who any of the other six judges, I believe it's a parallel of seven for now, any of the other six judges will be. And again I just need to point out the composition of the Judicial Legal Services, the Regional Judicial Legal Services Commission. You have the president who shall be chairman. So the president of the CCJ is chairman of that body. You have two persons nominated jointly by the Organization of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Association and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States Bar Association. You have one chairman of the Judicial Legal Services Commission of one of the contracting parties rotated in English alphabetical order for a period of three years. The chairman of the Public Service Commission of a contracting party selected rotation reverse English alphabetical order again for a period of three years. Two persons from civil society nominated jointly by the Secretary General of the Caribbean Community and the Director General of the OECS for a period of three years following consultations with regional non-governmental organizations. Two distinguished jurists meaning two judges or lawyers of usually retired judges nominated jointly by the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of West Indies and the Deans of the Faculty of Law of any contracting countries and the Chairman of the Council of Legal Education. Again the Council of Legal Education is the body that is responsible for the law schools that is the professional training of attorneys in the Caribbean and then you have two persons nominated jointly by the Bar Associations of the Contracting Parties. I paused to point out as well I mentioned that two persons are appointed for three years in rotation but as a whole apart from the president the persons who serve on the Regional Judicial Legal Services Commission can only serve for a maximum of six years so that's two three-year terms. So even if you manage to get somebody on to the JLSE who has some sort of political leanings their influence is going to be limited because they have a limited time frame on the body and I'll say that is in the extremist situation possible. So the framers of the agreement establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice the CCJ went to lengths and were very innovative because at that point and in fact as far as I'm aware there's no other court which has that level of insulation and protection from influence of any kind. I've also heard the issue of well you know if the CCJ is so good why is it that only I think 12 out of the 14 countries that can possibly exceed have acceded to the jurisdiction. Sorry no I know four have acceded and the remainder haven't so the majority of countries that can accede to the appellate jurisdiction have not done so but to my mind that is looking at the question the wrong way around because the reason that they have not acceded is patent it's clear they have for the most part constitutions that require them to have a referendum. Now I know that's a hot topic and I'm not going to go into the politics of it but the facts and historical facts of referenda worldwide for the most part is that they fail. The last two referenda held in the Caribbean on the CCJ the turnout in in Grenada was 28 percent the turnout in Antigua was 33 percent because a referendum unless attached to an election does not motivate the electorate. The only persons who tend to be motivated in a referendum are persons who have a point to prove and Brexit I think is a very clear example of that where despite you have the ruling the government is putting forward a position it gets defeated by its own rebels because referenda tend to engender opposition rather and and airing of all sorts of not related issues rather than a proper consideration of the matters at hand and so there have been eight referenda in the Caribbean from in the post-independence period and I'm talking about from the Bahamas in the north to Guyana in the south and out of that eight only one has succeeded that's in Guyana and their questions as to how it succeeded so clearly countries are not going to waste the resources and time because referenda are very expensive because you basically have to put on a full election they're not going to waste the resources of doing so if they know the chances of success are low so as I'm saying I think we're looking at the question the wrong way rather than looking at why persons have not exceeded let's look at the experience of those countries that have the four countries that have gone to the the CCJ Barbados, Belize, Guyana and now Dominica and as far as I'm aware in terms of the experience of litigants in terms of experience of practitioners they are all extremely satisfied with the performance with the operations of the CCJ. Belize in particular has brought a number of rather innovative appeals to the CCJ which has rarely moved Caribbean jurisprudence forward similarly Guyana and it's very interesting when researching matters and you sometimes you end up in a very circular sort of research so you you go to the Privy Council which then refers to matters out of say South Africa which then astonishingly refer to a matter out of the CCJ or you go to the Privy Council again because this is where our final call of appeal is now and you get a whole raft of CCJ precedents being cited with full approval so there's no question as to the quality of the the jurisprudence coming out of the CCJ there's no question as to the capability of the judges who sit on the CCJ and in fact I should have made the point when I was looking at the Regional Judicial Legal Services Commission there is nothing in the agreement establishing the court that requires that the judges must be Westinian they have to reside in the jurisdiction and so I'll get to the value of that shortly but we are unable to seek and we have in fact sought expertise worldwide so one of the original judges on the court was Professor Hayton those of us who do trust law know that he has established the Bible on trust law that is the caliber of persons who have sat on the CCJ along with him was Michael De La Bastille who if there's ever a legal luminary was one of them this is a man of extreme intelligence I mean he literally radiates intelligence when you speak with him he's been followed up by well who's now our very own uh Sir Dennis Byron and Adrian Saunders is our current president the OECS has actually had the the good fortune of producing two out of the three presidents of the CCJ that's far this is Saunders this is from St. Vincent this is Byron originated from St. Kitts but as I said he essentially is a solution now and again this is despite the fact that those countries have not acceded to the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ so even the arguments that persons are trying to make about oh but there's little judges that know people and they know the persons who are going to to come to them the majority of the judges are sitting are from countries that have not acceded to the appellate jurisdiction I mean it's a nonsense generally but if in if you were to take it and look at it logically there is no conflict there because the majority of the judges sitting on the panel are not from the countries where the appeals are going to come from at least not not as yet hopefully we'll get to the point where all of our caracom brothers and sisters are able to appeal to the CCJ but as it is right now you have a situation where the judges have the highest esteem of the highest degree of integrity and if persons want judges who are not parts of of their country thus far are not from from those countries so allow me then to speak on what I believe are the benefits of the CCJ first of all ideologically as I indicated at the beginning I am of the view that the repatriation of the patriation of our apex court is an essential part of our independence process persons have said that independence is a circle I don't believe so I think it's a process it's a continuum that we are moving along and as we we develop as we grow we become more independent we become more confident in ourselves but this is a view that's not only shared by me I'm sure I'm actually I hope that we are all aware that we have a government that is made up of three elements so you have the legislature which we are all part of you have the executive and you have the judiciary they are all co-equal branches of the law as it stands right now the legislature and the executive are local although the head of the executive is figuratively the queen but for all intents and purposes those the sorry the king see the pictures throwing me off sorry the king but for all intents and purposes those two branches of government are based and grounded in st lucha so why then should the third co-equal arm be based somewhere else it's based in the uk we have no say over who sits on it we have no say over when they sit we have no say over how they organize their business in any sort of way and and the importance of ensuring that all three branches work together was recognized by lord hoffman who I should have mentioned earlier when I was speaking about bias because he is one of he's the next renowned and esteemed jurist but he is also the subject of one of the most famous bias cases out of the preview out of the house of lords where he did not declare his interest in amnesty international which had been anxiously advocating criminal sanctions against agosto pinochet and he sat on that matter involving mr pinochet it only came out after he had delivered his decision after sorry the court had sat delivered his decision that he may have had that bias and that conflict that he did not disclose and so that whole process had to be restarted and had to rehate the appeal again and so based on his actions or non-actions a whole principle of bias and what constitutes bias and when it should be declared has been has been established but in a speech to the trenad bar association in 2023 he stated but my own view is that a court of your own is necessary if you are going to have the full benefit of what a final court can do to transform society in partnership with the two other branches of government so you have a member of the privy council himself stating but look the way our Westminster based styles of government operate is you have three separate but equal branches which have to work together and working together doesn't just mean that they communicate they already need to be based in the same culture the same society so that they can ensure that they're all pulling in a similar direction and so as i said ideologically to me it is an imperative that the court of justice form our highest our apex of the the legal system it has been said that it will foster greater access to the court but what exactly does this greater access mean and how does that play out practically as i indicated our courts are hierarchical in structure you have the marriage is caught at the bottom the high court in the above that the court of appeal and then the ccj hopefully at the top and as you'd expect for most persons the interaction is going to be at the lowest level they get decisions if they're unhappy the appealing goes up they're unhappy then they go up again so it's a pyramid shape but what tends to happen as has been said is that persons get stuck at the court of appeal or the high court level because oftentimes they cannot afford to go any further now you have a lot of cases of significant legal importance that are not being heard simply because persons cannot afford to go further so even aside from the the practical impact on the persons and their everyday life it impacts on everybody else because our system of law is based on what's known as precedent so the highest courts basically interprets the law and all the courts below it have to follow it but if you don't get to that highest level errors that may be made at the lower level will continue to be the precedent that everybody has to follow so we are penalizing ourselves in a number of ways by retaining the privy council as our appellate our final court of appeal because matters that really ought to be determined are not being determined and so precedent that has been established at a lower level that may not be correct is what is obtaining in a lot of cases so when we say access to justice we mean practical impact on persons because you can now begin to order your life more appropriately because you can be more certain that the decisions that have been taken and the precedence that you want to follow it have been heard at that highest level and have been given that ultimate stamp of approval for want of a better expression also and the question was asked of me this morning one of the fallacies i've heard repeated constantly during the debate on the ccj is the idea that justice being blind means that justice is not sensitive the idea that there is this universal objective level of justice that will apply regardless of what society belong to regardless of what faith and beliefs you have is fallacious to some degree the blindness means that the courts and the judges are not to pay attention to individuals but not that we don't pay attention to their circumstances not that we don't pay attention to the culture and the society in which they live there are things that are based and we will understand intrinsically because we share a cultural understanding we all know what a wake is we all know what a fetus we all know what a lime is and oftentimes we'll have conversations with people and we'll use phrases and use words not necessarily understanding that they don't understand what we're talking about because they don't come from the same social um position or same social background that we do I came across a quote from a professor of mine um Simeon McIntosh which i think perhaps encapsulates and makes this point i'm trying to make more eloquently than than i'm i'm doing and this is what he said so long as we remain the subjects of the british crown with his judicial committee as the apex in the hierarchy of our legal system it is to be expected that our constitutional discourse would reflect a cluster of values intellectual orientations and practices that carry a distinct british caste our constitutional conversation is carried out in a foreign voice we are either silenced or are constrained to speak within the institutions and traditions of interpretation of the colonial constitutions that have been imposed on us and without getting too technical and too much into the legal aspects of it the interpretation of the constitution is a prime example of that when you compare the interpretation puts on our constitutions by the privy council versus the interpretations put on it by the ccj you will quickly realize that the ccj is taking although the privy council says that they're going to take a very generous approach to particularly the fundamental rights in chapter one of our constitutions the ccj rarely rarely rarely puts us into practice and they have used i want to extreme measures but they used very generous interpretation to ensure that as much as possible those rights that are enshrined in our constitutions are respected and given effect to and part of that is the understanding of the backgrounds from which we have come from the deprived and and um deprived and and subjected backgrounds that we have come from as a people generally the fight for decolonization the fight for respect for rights of black people of indian persons of other minorities the understanding of the social dynamics that we have in the caribbean plays out very clearly when you read the judgments from the caribbean court of justice and the importance of that is that it gives effective justice to persons who approach the caribbean court of justice because i said justice is blind in the sense that it doesn't give regard to the individual but it must be sensitive to the needs of the particular individual for example the example i was given by the um leader of government business the fact that most persons in the caribbean come from a dispossessed situation as regards land creates a slightly different caste when you consider how persons try to assert their rights to land when they have it and that understanding informs the decisions given by the ccj that is something that a court out of the uk will not necessarily intrinsically understand yes they may be able to read that the law and understand well it says x y and z but the application of that law the interpretation of that law to ensure that it is safeguarding the interests of persons on the ground has to come from somebody who comes from that background now one of the criticisms as well that i've i've heard of the ccj is that again going back to the point oh they're going to know the lawyers who appear before them they're going to know the litigants it's a small society we're coming from now we say that but i'm always surprised when i meet new people in solution in our little 238 square miles i don't know everybody in solution so how then out of a community of millions which is what the caribbean um population is can it be expected that the judges are going to know everybody now yes they're going to know the attorneys who appear before them because the legal fraternity is a small one but if we look for example and again either at the us court of appeal or the supreme court in the uk the vast majority of the court of appeal judges the supreme court judges in the uk in the sorry in the united states have come from two universities harvard or Yale they have either worked under existing um court justices associate justices as they call them prior to ascending to the um supreme court themselves or there have been members of what's known as the federalist society so again you're cherry picking the the lawyers who sit at the apex court and sorry the judges are the apex court from a very small um selection if you look at the supreme court in the uk again the majority of them have come from either oxford or Cambridge in fact i came across an article from the law society of the uk in 2019 where it said that the senior levels of the british judiciary is the most elitist profession in the uk 75 percent of the senior judges in the uk and this is not just the supreme court this is the supreme court the the court of appeal and the high court have come from either oxford or Cambridge 75 percent we don't know who the judges of there know so we go blindly in thinking that we are getting i'm not casting any aspersions on the operation of the uk supreme court but the fact is we don't know who these judges are we don't know who the lawyers that we are selecting to represent are and again because again this is how the legal profession works it's a small small subset of society you must have had some legal experience to become a judge which means you must have been a lawyer to be a judge the nature of the legal profession is this collegiate you're going to speak to your colleagues you're going to develop repetitions for them because today i'm against you today i'm working working with you for another another client but that does not stop you from developing the professional discipline that when i am doing my work i'm doing my work the fact that i may have known you in a social setting does not impact on how strongly as a lawyer i am going to contest the matter against you and similarly sitting as a judge the mere fact that you well most judges will recuse themselves if you worked together with them so again the judicial the standard of judicial practice would not allow that to happen but because i did know you as an attorney practicing does not mean that i cannot rule against you and does not mean i probably am going to rule against you if your case is nonsense so when i hear persons making that point about oh it's a small fraternity and they're going to know each other i laugh because that is the nature of the legal profession wherever you go it is going to happen whether you go to the uk whether you go to the united states in fact if you can let me just share an anecdote i did a masters in the uk and whilst there one of my colleagues was attempting to become and this to show you how closed the uk system is he was attempting to become a barrister so he as part of the process of qualifying as a barrister you have to do what's known as a pupillage these are very very very difficult to obtain so he managed to obtain which and that's a 12-year period where you work with a set of barristers he managed to obtain a mini pupillage so a six-month attachment he did very well his assessments were glowing but yet when the opportunity to give a full pupillage came along it was given to a young lady who happened to have oxbridge behind her name she had gone to oxford she had actually gotten a worse degree out of oxford than the degree he had gotten from his university but that didn't count because she came from the right university and sadly this is what happens in a lot of those developed countries but again as i said we don't know so we play into the idea that they are somehow independent superior whereas in a number of cases they are either the same as operating in exactly the same fashion we are or in some cases as i pointed out with operating in a worse way because they don't have the insulations and the protections that this tcj has going back to the point of making sure that justice is rooted in our in our society as far back as 1928 lord broham who was a member of the judicial committee said this it is obvious that from the mere distance of these colonies and the immense variety of matters arising in them foreign to our habits and beyond the scope of our knowledge any judicial tribunal in this country meaning the uk must of necessity be an extremely inadequate court of redress lord hoffman my good friend in 2023 in 2003 again sorry said although the privy council has done its best to serve the Caribbean i venture to think and i venture to think has done much to improve the administration of justice in parallel with improvements in the united kingdom our remoteness from the community has been a handicap and and it has been recognized by persons of extremely high judicial standing that you need to be based in the society over which you are presiding over which you are dispensing justice to have a true connection and link to that society senator um wishing for me that you have gone over your time i should have informed you that you had one minute left thank you this is if i can be afforded just yes sorry no just ten minutes madam president may i rise on a point of order 35 three to allow senator lee an additional 15 minutes within to which to complete his presentation senators the question is that some in order 35 three be suspended to allow senator lee evoked to allow senator lee an additional many minutes 15 minutes to make his contribution i now put the question as many who are of that opinion say i as many who are of a contrary opinion say no i think the eyes have it the eyes have it leave is granted senator you may proceed thank you madam president and thank you honorable members i don't have much further to go so i i thank you for the extension of another element of or advantage of the creven court of justice is what i believe is the improvement of the administration of justice in the countries where the appellate jurisdiction applies one of the benefits is that you will have a court a final court of appeal that again as i said is based in the society so one of the things that being based in the society means is that they understand what's happening at the lower levels of the judiciary they understand what's happening at the magistracy they understand what's happening at the court registries they understand what's happening at the high court and the court of justice the ccj has been on record as criticizing for example the delays in the delivery of decisions coming out to the barbarian sport and so you find that in the wake of that criticism that laying out of guidelines as to exactly how much time it should take for judgment to be delivered steps have been taken in barbarous and i'm hoping the other jurisdictions to ensure that the guidelines set down by the ccj are being met there is also an organization known as the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers which is based in Trinidad as part of the ccj it is chaired by justice um Peter Jamadah but the raison d'etre for that organization is to improve the capacity of our judicial officers that's registry officials as well as judges throughout the region so and this again applies not just to the countries that have exceeded but to all of the caracom countries but can you imagine how much more they will be able to do if they have a direct link with the countries that and the judicial officers in the countries that they are seeking to assist the the feeding of information the feeding of skills the feeding of um whether well the downward feeding of these skills will ensure that judicial officers in whatever jurisdiction are better able to deal with their matters better able to dispense justice and practice and and and follow the best judicial practices possible so they are going to be tangible practical benefits as i said i'm all for the ideological and i'm very supportive of the ideological basis first moving to the ccj but there are going to be practical benefits as well and this is one of them the fact that they are the apex court they set the standard that all the judiceries below it have to adhere to so if you know for example you are a judge in cinducia and your judgments are ultimately going to be delivered and determined sorry almost reviewed and determined by the caribbean court of justice you're going to pay more attention to the way they operate the standard by which they deliver their judgments and you are going to rise to that standard where you have the disconnect between us and the privy council they don't have as much of a stake in our local operations as the ccj will have which is not to say that a ccj is going to be a cure-all for our local problems do not get me wrong i'm not saying that but i'm saying that having an exemplar within the region that we can all aspire to is going to improve our operations locally and so madam president in concluding i just wish to reiterate that the statement has been made on numerous occasions that this momentous occasion represents a closing of the circle of independence i disagree with that statement because i believe that independence like progress is a continuum and today we are not taking the final step of our independence but rather a leap forward in controlling and shaping our destiny in ordering the dreams of our forebears and developing a fully fledged inclusion and by extension west indian peruvian civilization thank you madam president for your indulgence thank you very much madam president i wish to join you in extending condolences to the family of former senator mr. henry philips i also wish to extend deep commendation to our cent Lucian athlete julian alfred who seemed to be breaking records and doing marvelous things in texas we ought to share in the pride of our patriots who are going out there and really giving a good representation of themselves i also wish to commend the independence celebrations committee for a series of events to mark our 44th year of independence madam president i was really honored to be part of history about two days ago when members of the lower house presented and passed by a two-thirds majority the resolution to have the caribbean court of justice as our final appellate court madam president know of the privy council i know that the privy council is based in london and it composes the british jurist and that has been our highest court of appeal since the colonial era quite surprised madam president and when i listened last night to a program that was moderated by senator lisa joyeux where she had former chief justice and former president of the ccj so then it's byron as her guest and among other things he indicated that only 12 countries have their cases ruled by the privy council eight of which are from the caribbean that to me is compelling enough to tell me that my country is going in the right direction however the addition to what so then is said and happy to be sitting in this house on tuesday when the honorable prime minister presented the motion but more so backed by the member for view for itself a learned constitutional lawyer and sent lucian to honorable dr kennedy antony who presented the proposition sentian or sent lucia's ascension to the caribbean court of justice this morning in herring the senate and herring the presentation of the leader of government business backed by independent senator d lee who is an attorney at law in sent lucia i don't even think that enough to be able to say much more and madam president an ascension from organization and past into agency that suits us as a people is something to which we all should be proud colonialism gradually and if we notice we took many years many years progressing in a positive way and i agree with senator lee that independence cannot be circular it has to be a on a positive trajectory it's a journey and there is much more that we have to achieve as we continue to gain our independence so madam president when some people believe that colonialism had a conscience you expect these people to agree to the ccj you expect these countries to come and embrace our caribbeanism our regionalism our solutionism madam president i believe it is very very clear that opponents of what the government is doing right now have their own agenda madam president something that's curious to me is that when i read about the ccj i noted that the first agreement the signing was done like was said before on february 14th 2001 that was just six days after my last son was born so it's 22 years old in 2001 the administration of the sent lucia labor party was in office when the ccj first made first came came into office when they started it was in 2005 again look at the time and as you go on into 2023 you're seeing that the progression that has been made has always been made during the reign of the sent lucia labor party government one may ask what happened when the other government was in office did they pay any attention to it as far as i see it madam president when sent lucia has gained development of its people it has always been under a labor party government so madam president i wouldn't go into the hierarchy of the courts because that has been done by my learned friend and he been a practitioner so he knows how the court progresses from the magistrates court to the eastern caribbean supreme court which is made up of the high court and the court of appeal and now the final appellate court after february 28th 2023 is the ccj for me madam president the most significant part of this event is the access to justice that this decision has given the people of sent lucia test for senator d lee he's an attorney he will be representing clients but it is access to the people able to represent themselves properly painted on a technicality not heard and are seeking appeals in order for them to get justice that for me is the significance of the ccj the access to justice is for the people who have lands taken away from them and who want redress that for me is what i believe is significant in what has been done i feel sad when i am seeing some people outside saying no for random no ccj no for random and i want to explain sa for random yay this bit at the random say no i am pat white but in english it is referendum okay so i know dc for random kinoin oh sa for random yay madam president i want to read an scholarly article a book actually called bringing in the people a comparison of constitutional forms and practices of referendum by mark who succ c it's a 1993 book which says representative government constitutes the dominant mechanism of national decision making however from time to time this form of government seems to be in difficulties in this regard the direct participation of the people most notably through the referendum has been proposed as a remedy so so it means that these people are representatives of the people and madam president the people when we go out to vote the electorate has a responsibility of ensuring that they vote for people who can represent their interest just lady oh ebe alea office ebe alea la shime eke fer toa vai ki kai represent interest yo that is the serious thing so madam president even as a young person if there's one thing i always look for before an election is a manifesto i am not one who just goes blindly well i come to mama i'm saying i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm i say and i vote i'm not in that i believe in the independence of everybody's mind and interest that they need to go and see which party has their interest and so when i went through the manifesto of 2021 made a decision based on what was presented in here that's what a referendum is you know when you go and you put your ex you're not putting your ex just for philip jp l or joe akim henry or selotla right you put your ex for what they have presented that they say they're going to do and that is what you hold them to while they are in office so youth economy i see that in the manifesto i see the youth economy agency is going to be launched on march 7 next tuesday promise delivered promise fulfilled referendum you'll take fair on july 26 mini la it is happening that's what we voted for and so for the five years we need to start checking boxes in fact what i'm going to do every time one of the manifesto things have been accomplished i will cross it and if at the end of the five years there are any the neymar the government sakinie on page 28 of the manifesto under the heading good governance anti-corruption and constitutional matters number four says and i'll start from the paragraph above to return our country to a system that respects our democratic norms and rights of our people a saint lucia labor party government will a number four commends the process of the ascension to the caribbean court of justice as saint lucia's final appellate court as the replacement to the preview council oh sir sir lady the majority of saint lucia's rejected what was presented to them by the united workers party two constituencies accepted what was presented by the united workers party 13 constituencies accepted what was presented by the saint lucia labor party and by extension all of what is inside of this manifesto this is the referendum madam president thank you madam president in 2013 again during the reign of the saint lucia labor party the question was put to the court of appeal again testing our system as to whether section 47 one which speaks to the amendments to the constitution would require that saint lucia have a referendum for them to go into the ccg the chief justice and justices of appeal indicated that there is no need for a referendum but again madam president i don't know if we expected better for an administration that stayed without a deputy speaker and obey or come and agree or come and read any decision by the court of appeal administration if the dcsa tell me to do anything i'm not doing it blatantly they said so regarding saint judo the dca taking in less time and the dca and i would just regard the dca the same administration who's was trying to guide them and put order in this house mem administration side you expect them to take a court of appeal judgment and accept it he found it so shameful madam president when i looked outside at the 12 people that were there on tuesday and i saw somebody had a poster no referendum no ccg but it's right down there and the person looking as if you get there without conviction why because they're just blind followers so one person says something the leader says something and because i have to throw the line you know because of what i will get you know if you don't if you don't follow the rules go we've seen it where the other people come upstairs right so these people have to follow blindly yeah it is the people who do not even understand what a referendum is are the people who are following them madam president to see that we're here in the house on such a historic occasion as a senate and that is what the day you choose not to attend the senate meeting who are you hurting the people of st lucer demands greater representation and it's left to the people of st lucer to see whether the people who they are putting in their in office to represent them have their interests at heart madam president of the ccg an article in the michigan journal of international law entitled courts of appeal and colonialism in the british caribbean a case for the caribbean court of justice it's a 2013 article volume 35 issue one and page 243 it indicates that the caribbean court of justice was given two primary functions and senator lee made mention of it but just for emphasis madam president it states the first was to serve as a final court of appeal for the eastern caribbean countries english-speaking countries the ccj was envisioned to be a final replacement for the judicial committee of the previous council as the ultimate court of appellate jurisdiction for both criminal and civil matters it is the highest municipal court in the region the second function was to serve as an international court with original jurisdiction for the region for now we know that there are four countries in the caribbean that are that are using the ccj as they find the final appellate court and that is barbados gianna bellies and recently dominica now i'm hearing the argument oh why we don't wait for the other countries you know why we want to rush but to me madam president my question is why won't we the first why won't we the first bright people like us we have to know their laureates and if we check ourselves we have laureates so much over the world we should have been first why aren't we first why are we waiting but the article also tells me a little why some other countries are not there because there are some countries we're almost ready to take in front the countries of trinidad and jamaica their prime ministers in 2013 will come up beside the sessa and posher simpson miller you know why they have not gone because their constitutions require a referendum they require two-thirds majority and they have not been able to get that at the election results why they do not have they have not gotten it yet they have not gotten a two-thirds majority seota hen two-thirds majority madam president they would have been in front but july 26 2021 when we had the mask to join the government so you have 15 to what's that two folks or one one one one piece i for fifth he plebe has a two-thirds huh so madam president who was a who was have said he poyo aqua plexi your shock right 15 to they don't know what to do with themselves so no for random no ccj cpj you're the so madam president i wouldn't go into the real the regional judicial and legal services commission senator lee did a marvelous job in outlining all of the composition of the regional and judicial legal services commission this morning madam president i heard a little news clip by a gentleman who is a political what is he a political strategist i heard him very often before the 2021 elections given all kinds of predictions and at some point although i had a lot of respect for him because his predictions seem to have always been accurate but in 2021 he couldn't read the people of st lucer you think he could have read the people who were called backing dogs who were called mendicants uh so the pregnant single women were were breathing criminals these were the people who went out to vote on july 26 2021 he didn't read these people the people went quietly and do their business on july 26 right so his predictions were flawed i remember him talking about castries north and all of us devinson kink cannot bend any castries north and but we saw what happened this morning i heard him saying madam president that solution does not need a referendum i don't know why the leader of your opposition is pushing a referendum because if the notion goes to a referendum it will show that the people want him out by 2026 2021 be careful what you ask for be careful what you ask for because from what i'm seeing more they try to pull a crowd is more the people are running away that's what i'm seeing more they try to pull a crowd is more they're running away i'll tell you something madam president i'll tell you a little secret in anticipation of the big crowd that we would have had on tuesday because i hear people were rallying their troops to come and demonstrate outside day i run here early i came here early on tuesday morning so that i wouldn't have to squeeze through the crowd i didn't even drive my car i said you know because i leave enough space for the crowd if you have cars it will take space up for the crowd so i didn't drive my car i was driven here and i run inside every minute i'm peeping outside to look for the crowd and i'm looking for the crowd and i cannot find the crowd when i looked there i start counting i count 12 people you see madam president that the referendum that was created or that was done on july 26 2021 the people accepted that referendum or referendum right now is like the former president of the united states who did not want to accept that he lost the elections and all before we were talking about tropical trump we didn't realize there was a real real tropical trump for true that is the will of the people that must be accepted july 26 took and it has given the current government the right to represent all of the people of st lucer and that is what is happening and we are able to ascend to the ccj as our final appellate court madam president i must look at the appointment of judges of the ccj and the level of scrutiny that goes into that appointment because when i look i've had a cause to deal with the judicial system in america in the united states more specifically in texas and i did a little political science when i attended the university of the west indies and i'm a product of the university of the west indies too madam president i'm proud to say both my first and second degrees were done at the university of the west indies cavill campus when i did political science then it did not really occur to me how politicized the judicial system the legislature and all of these systems are in the united states the attorney general in the various states are voted on by the people the cut along party lines republican democrat district attorneys judges supreme court judges voted are elected along political lines mayors commissioners school commissioners everybody is politically a particular judge sitting on a bench duations where cases are decided in a strange way was a rude awakening for me the murder of my son a particular district attorney republican she ran for elections during the case lost had to go to another district attorney who has a democrat is the order of the day in the united states here in the caribbean you have such a high level of scrutiny of these judges the regional judicial legal services commission is made up of representatives of so many bodies as senator lee outlined then you have to go through all of them the only thing i believe is needed is that there should be greater transparency in their appointments similar to how supreme court judges what supreme court judges go through because i remember sitting and watching the hearings of supreme court judge clarence thomas that was the time when an ita hill had accused him of sexual harassment then i watched the the governor hearings the recent hearings of the little lady who was appointed by the current president joe biden there was another amy barnett i think her name is so it's all televised and different people a committee would come and ask them questions and everything and people have the opportunity to question their integrity some of them too are ridiculous some ridiculous things because in the case of kavanaugh i think they brought up this thing of him being with somebody while he was on his tomb 40 or 50 years ago you know and things like that so i believe that there can be greater scrutiny greater transparency when going through the appointment of these judges but for the most part madam president i believe that we have we have done the government of st lucia on february 28th 2023 has done what the people of st lucia need and that is to ascend through the caribbean court of justice as their final appellate court lastly madam president i just want to go through some of the regional institutions that we have enjoyed in the caribbean for many years and see how successful these organizations have been first of all we have the university of the west indies when we have already said this marquis institution that has produced so many of us throughout the region how they call it the the csm e free free movement of people and goods and services and all of that we have the oecs commission we have the eastern caribbean telecommunications authority ectel when ectel was created madam president and we saw the emergence of other telecommunication providers that's when our rates went down that is when we started to enjoy lower rates for telecommunication services i don't know if some of you remember we used to have something called trunk call few franca streets and you go and call and slurry it's a high it was a higher rate pepole souk we have vf4 the rates were high right here in the 238th square masia something called trunk call eastern caribbean telecommunications authority ectel came into being that we are now enjoying one rate than that one service provider before n used to look like one long thing like a like a cordless handset we didn't have the luxury of cell phones at ectel and our rates were lower i went to the bahamas and the rates were so high and i asked but what happened at the time behamas didn't even have a proper regulator now we have a regulator for telecommunication services in the eastern caribbean states and we are able to enjoy much lower rates better service and greater scrutiny of these telecommunication providers we have the eastern caribbean central bank that has kept our currency stable for years and have fluctuating rates when we say we have an eastern caribbean currency for an ec dollar it has its price it has its conversion rates stable to the us dollar and by extension the eastern caribbean central authority we have the eastern caribbean securities exchange the eastern caribbean supreme court will tell me my time up already senator you have five minutes to complete your presentation no i'll take the five five or ten i'll take the five right so madam president all of this has shown that the caribbean has been successful in its development of its people and institutions that trajectory on which we are going sent lucha is going is positive has the best interest of the people they are putting people first not only by the bread and butter things that we do on the ground but building institutions that would cause stability for our people access to justice for our people fairness for our people so that the man on the street can have a better quality of life madam president i therefore wish to applaud the government of st lucha to applaud my prime minister honorable philip jpa this man sit down they're quiet humble but he has a brain that ends that are big like that and therefore madam president i would wish i wish to support the motion to have the caribbean court of justice as the final appellate court for the people of st lucha thank you senator aziz thank you madam president unfortunately i am i am not as decorated academically or with a sense of history as my esteemed independent senator collie or some of the presenters before me but nonetheless in my own small way i wish to add my voice in support of this motion to amend the constitution i'm trembling with excitement and not cold that this is indeed a milestone achievement in the growth of our democracy as overdue as it is it's timing to coincide with the island's 44th anniversary of independence is welcome what better way to live up to this year's theme one people shaping our destiny than by taking control of our responsibility for our destiny and transitioning to the ccj in recommending the adoption of the ccj in the 2011 constitutional reform report the constitutional reform commission stressed that a commitment needed to be made to complete st lucha's growth as a civilization in its own right and that the umbilical ties to the former colonial motherland needed to be broken the commission regarded it as incompatible with the status of independence that the interpretation of st lucha's laws should be done for it by a foreign power on foreign soil it has been a long and at sometimes uncertain road but here we are today marking this milestone achievement now the advantages of moving to the ccj have been eloquently spoken to by the honorable prime minister and and many of my colleague senators who went before me today but i just wish to capture to my mind what are some of the appreciable benefits of moving across to the ccj one it's accessibility and its affordability two that it is more in tune with cultural and legal traditions of the caribbean region that it serves as a demonstration of our ability as an independent nation to manage our own legal affairs and that our citizens will take great pride in this that it demonstrates our commitment to regional integration and cooperation many of the regional institutions so eloquently spoken to by senator john and transparency in the appointments which were addressed by senator lee it comforts many that the ccj has created a system of electronic filing and videoconferencing making it easier for people to access the court services from across the region this speaking to its efficiency joining the ccj will provide therefore san lucha with a court that better understands its unique challenges strengthen regional cooperation and integration and offer a more accessible and affordable option for justice these benefits are likely to be important to both the private sector and civil society in san lucha as we seek to build a strong and stable society that is grounded in the rule of law madam president as the excitement builds towards this ascension i simply wish to not reiterate the intelligence and the wisdom of this decision but i simply wish to add that as we continue this evolution in our independence we must also ensure that we continue to address other areas of our justice system for far too long we have heard of the dreaded backlog of cases and the amount of time it takes for simple matters to be heard in court as we speak there are more inmates on remand at the border lake correctional facility than convicted we cannot allow situations like this to continue indeed justice delayed is justice denied in as much as i'm pleased to support this landmark amendment to st lucas constitution i strongly believe that it is also just as critical for us to act on some of the other recommendations from the constitutional reform report which was submitted over 20 years ago one of these is that the commission recommended the abolishment of st lucas constitutional monarchical system to be replaced with the republican constitutional system the country's head of state the report advised would be a ceremonial president who would replace the governor general indeed this is a period that we should all celebrate 44 years after gaining independence we are leaving another aspect of our colonial past behind and stepping into a new light together irrespective of party lines irrespective irrespective of social status irrespective of any other ideologies second to state together we must ensure that we use this day as a stepping stone to continue to bring about more change in our country and i again commend the wisdom of the honorable prime minister and all those who support this motion thank you senator charlie thank you madam president like those before me i rise to add my contribution to the bill before us madam president in determining what side of the line you stand on in this debate madam president it is my opinion that there are some basic things that you need to understand in order to make an informed decision about the matter at hand and so my presentation will be based on some of these madam president and i want to make it abundantly clear as well that whilst you madam president are the officiating member of this house and whilst we address you in our manner of speaking we all have a responsibility when we debate motions and bills that are before us to speak to the people of this country the people whose lives depend on the decisions that we make and the decisions that we agree or do not agree to so i will also attempt to make my presentation as simplified as possible so that the people of central sure understand better what the position is in order that they themselves can determine whether or not their decision and their opinion on the matter is an informed one madam president over the last few days we have heard a lot he listened from my workplace on Tuesday whilst the lower house sat and i must say that some of the information that came through was very informative like many before me i need to applaud the honorable prime minister in his presentation of the bill but i need to go a bit further madam president to compliment and to make mention of the member for view for itself in his normal and expected eloquence madam president it was indeed a classroom whilst i sat glued to my computer screen listening to the honorable kenny the antony as he explored the the subject matter by means of making the people understand and and being very informative in terms of the information that he presented in the lower house and in similar fashion today mr deputy president the leader of government business in his presentation of the bill also made a very good attempt to enlighten the people whose lives really matter and the people who would be most affected by the decisions that we make in terms of the why as it concerns that bill and in a similar fashion independent senator delay and perhaps the the parallel here with dr. kenny the antony is that they are law luminaries in their own rights and so there may be basic things that we do not understand like was alluded to by the other independent senator senator aziz that we may not understand everything as it relates to the the technicalities of the law but there are basic things that we understand that can help us lend to our understanding of the bill before us and so i begin with a basic understanding of what a referendum is and basically a referendum is a general vote by the electorate on a single political question and i i i will perhaps borrow from my senator colleague in terms of the the the creole understanding of the creole pronunciation of the word based on what we saw on tuesday and i do not want by any measure of the word mr deputy president to make it appear as if the people who felt it necessary or felt compelled to stand up outside of the house of assembly on tuesday or those who participated in this in the mini protest over the weekend in the zonal meeting in schozel i am by no means here to say that they should not stand up and speak up for the things that they feel in it too but the question mr deputy president is has the that the the the regime that they follow have they taken the time to really explain to them and are they doing it from a position of understanding and information rather than a position of simply following where the head leaves you mr deputy president and so like i said earlier a referendum is a general a vote general about or or a guy who um who i affected um a political question question political so your bagai in this case a ccg so see what's under a referendum so i mean to come on the pepe here s u agreement and the s o opposite move so that's a question come on the my question is say mr deputy president s e referendum let's say play my bagaila tool up to save me and put away one question salla no need to put one kisser argument argument against a referendum yeah any payee kija sevi referendum just recently the brexit referendum and so the question is when you pose a single political question to an electorate you have to ask yourself like i said whether a referendum is the best tool to use the arguments against referendums mr deputy president speaks to referendums trivializing what may be otherwise highly complex issues so referendum referendum ended question but is there an opportunity for you to say yes why or no why does it give you an opportunity to understand the real issues involved in the topic of conversation mr president mr deputy president and so in many ways referendums really trivialize what we refer to as highly complex issues by oversimplifying them into a yes or no vote and i i i want to quote from an article from hoda education and it's a uk based document mr deputy president it says i'm presenting the public with a straightforward question with only two possible outcomes is to ignore the details of how such decisions will be actioned referendums only really provide a snapshot of the public's opinion at one point in time okay we also look at referendums as a tool that can also make decisions become highly divisive and i pondered on that one a bit mr deputy president and i asked myself in a country where we have so often made reference to the fact that we are divided politically why is it that the opposition are hell bent on wanting to move a referendum for that matter a matter that has in terms of whether you need a referendum or not has been sufficiently dealt with that the very constitution of this land that guides what we do on a day-to-day basis in this land tells us that we do not need a referendum because of the the majority in parliament mr deputy president why are they hell bent on a referendum s a pascae yoko puan puva divide and rule the concept of divide and rule is it because they understand what it means all too well and so they are trying to further divide this little 238 square miles of ours is that why is that what it's motivated by and mr deputy president they speak about flaunting the constitution but the very standing orders that guides this honorable house mr deputy president speaks in section 78 to absence of members and it says that any senator who is prevented from attending a meeting of the senate shall acquaint the cloak as early as possible of his or her inability to attend but the opposite side of the house this morning is empty mr deputy president and the members who are supposed to be sitting in this house who i did not hear madam president read an excuse for them so i am going on the premise that an excuse for absence was not given where they were supposed to be sitting in this house this morning to speak of the business of the people mr deputy president they were postulating before the media instead postulating before the media this morning so make up me the question i call we say deputy president if the sisa say just by black bio is it just a show for them mr mr deputy president so they in front of the media postulating and as they've done as we saw in the last almost six years flaunting the constitution no care to the constitution and we understand why because they're very leader indicated at some point that if there is no consequence to flaunting that if there is no consequence to flaunting the constitution that you will do it anyways that is what we're dealing with mr deputy president mr deputy president again in my search on whether a referendum was the best tool one thing stuck with me an evaluation on a paper that i read it said that referendums are overall a good tool for democracy and i agree because as somebody who who believes in democracy a referendum would if it's executed properly give the ordinary person who perhaps does not have the opportunity to stand in in the in a parliament to opine it would give them an opportunity to be part of the decision making of the country and so it says that referendums are overall a good tool for democracy as they make constitutional decisions more legitimate and provide a check on government power however they are vulnerable to ill informed votes and maybe an inadequate method of approving constitutional changes that will have a very large impact and mr deputy president again i pondered on that because when you find that the people who have come out to protest and to say that they support the ccj in essence but they want a referendum to make their voice be heard but yet still we heard them utter cpj we had them upper utter shishi j it begs the question have they been properly informed and so would they be voting as informed electorate or simply throwing political lines and that has been my issue with that call mr deputy president and so i move to the other aspect of wider ccj i think a lot of it has been articulated and exhausted in terms of why the need to move to the ccj as mr president we have seen the success of a lot of regional bodies that my colleagues before me and and members of the of the lower house on tuesday have articulated eloquently we are people within ourselves mr deputy president we have survived the worst of things as it relates to economic changes and so on that have happened over time in history and we have been able to come together as a regional people to make international mileage is whether it comes to sports whether it is with law we're in so many different areas mr deputy president and so why is it that we continue to doubt our ability is it an innate thing of us colored people that we can't seem to fully accept the fact that we can we can survive with our own and until we start beefing up and until we start recognizing the strength that we have not just as a country sent lusia but as part of a part of a larger region part of of of the caribbean part of carricum part of the oecs mr deputy president then we're not going anywhere fast when we speak of having produced to know to know the laureates when we speak of and in the in the conversation of ccj you've heard the names of judges and and lawyers and persons with danger to just judiciary who have elevated to to to that type of of of wrong to that type of luminary it means we can we can and we should not as a country we should not allow persons who perhaps do not have not fully subscribed to what we are and who we are as a people to dictate to us whether or not we can we need to learn to be living ourself mr deputy president and again of course we understand why there is division on this matter we are a lot of us are still in in independent celebratory mode and we celebrated our our independence with the theme dover and some it speaks of us moving forward together and i want to reiterate what was said earlier that having gone become an independent nation some 44 years ago there was not a full stop at the end of independence there there is space to evolve there is space to grow and there is space to improve what we what we do and i think this is a step in the right direction and again i want to punctuate that i applaud the visionary person we have as our prime minister in the person of honorable feet as very few many of the time but when he does speak you listen you learn because it's not a case of where he just speaks how they say he speaks very deep and he speaks from a position of understanding the issues of bread and butter mr deputy president and so the decisions that that that he makes and the decisions that he that the the things that we see coming forward are things that will help advance our country and so i applaud him for that mr president mr deputy president mr deputy president i think my colleague senator genre spoke to that matter that on july 26 2021 sent lutions spoke which is the same thing that the referendum would do is to give them an opportunity to speak and they spoke mr president they spoke out of 174 000 plus registered voters and yes the argument is that there was low voter turnout but as a matter of fact in my research i have found that this is not the make to sen lusia in many countries around the world we have seen a lot of decline in terms of voter turnout but the point remains that on in july 2021 43 799 persons in sen lusia cast a vote for the sen lusia labor party as compared to the 37 481 who cast a vote for the united workers party and you cannot tell me mr deputy president that a mere 18 months later he said he um pain yeah as as he vote pain we know he voted for a period of at least five years and so that in itself speaks volumes whether you look at it as a 13 out of 15 slp candidates which constitutes 86.6 percent of the votes or whether you look at it on the flip side of two in the case of the united workers party out of 17 and here's the brilliant thing mr deputy president they had 17 so it means that they had a greater opportunity of amassing the the the the electoral seats but that failed and so we need to get to the point where we accept that the ccj was a matter that was put forward to the electorate when they went to cast the ballot and they cast the ballot in the view of understanding that they were casting it for a collective set of proposals that were made to them by the leader of of of the party honorable philip jpa and they voted to agree that these are the things we want you to do and like i said it's merely 18 months mr deputy president will be the first one to admit that there is a lot of work that still needs to be done when it comes to the matter of the ccj and like i pointed before i do believe that even those that are shouting from the top of their lungs no ccj no referendum no ccj or however and others by extension i think there is need for mass education for mass dissemination of information i do believe that the the committee put in place to to see to this that they need to be in our schools and they need to be on our streets and they need to be in our communities and we ourselves as community leaders leaders of development committees within our communities leaders of youth and sports council the national youth council and every other entity that has some level of influence over people in this country i think we all have a responsibility to ensure that we go through the width and the breadth and across st lusia to ensure that we disseminate the information mr deputy president i think that is lacking and i know that there was at least one meeting already of the committee in viewfort and i see a few more being rolled out but i will admit like i indicated that i think there is so much more that can be done to bring the information to all the the communities the schools and so on so people understand what this thing is about and they understand who can access the ccj how can i access the ccj what is the benefit in it for us and so on and so forth i think that is very necessary mr deputy president i will agree as well that there needs to be an improvement of our local judicial system and we've heard the cries we've heard the cries that there is backlog in our judicial system there is unfairness there is bias in the judicial system and i do i agree that that there is work that needs to be done um it had been alluded to the fact that the second district court in viewfort has been closed for a while they've not been hearing cases because of an issue of mould and i think that is a matter that needs to be addressed urgently but my question for the detractors mr deputy president is is and one of the things that we need to note importantly is that the ccj one of the of the mandates is that of education so if we went in our reading of the ccj understanding what the ccj is and how it operates we learned that the court has an educational arm and an educational arm that has been used it has an academy and it it has been used and it can be used to really help with the improvement of even our local the operations of our local judicial system and so that is one of the advantages that we can make use of when as we as as we we move in that direction mr deputy president so there is apart from just the the normal arguments that we've heard of swiffer justice of more affordable justice and so on that's another point that must be made with regards to the ccj and so we have to take that into consideration as well the other thing that's very important mr president mr deputy president is i feel that we a lot of us have been speaking of the ccj as if it's a novel idea as if it's a new thing but we do know that it has been in existence for for some years and i know that some of some speakers before me today and in the law house on tuesday have covered the issue of original the original jurisdiction whether ccj has been all the members of all the members are covered under the original jurisdiction of the law which of the court sorry where that part is used mainly for the interpretation of treaties and laws and so on so my question then is if in fact that the court has been used to interpret law to interpret treaties that means there is some level of confidence that we have in it and so what is stopping us from going all the way where that is concerned mr deputy president as we look at social safety nets access to fair justice is perhaps one of the things that is overlooked and i heard it mentioned in the honorable house this morning access to justice has to be part of a serious country's social safety net social safety nets are not simply about providing housing and food and job security to persons but the assurance as well that there will be fair and equal access when it comes to matters of the law and so i do believe that the ascension will assist in that regard mr deputy president if we look at the figures in terms of cases that the period between the country sorry that have been using the ccj as a final court of appeal and we compare the figures between cases um good at the privy council level as compared to cases good at the ccj level that in itself is in terms of the figures is a compelling case for the ccj so permit me to just look at at least two examples let's look at barbados mr deputy president between 2000 and 2005 six years between the period of six years 2000 to 2005 there were only six cases from barbados that were good at the privy council so on ccj let me say deputy president ccj over privy council so say under on an average so look at the comparison with the with the with the cases mr deputy president six cases in six years to the privy council 20 cases in six years to the ccj that these figures are very telling mr deputy president if we look at bellies between 2005 and 2010 a six year period nine cases between 2011 and 2016 another six year period 15 ca