Despite Prime Minister Patterson informing the the U.K. based Guardian newspaper in 1999 that Jamaica would become a republic within 5 years (that is, by 2003), the Queen is still with us.

Not only do we still have the Queen, but it looks as though we may have the Privy Council for a while longer. The former leader of the Opposition, Edward Seaga, who is now making his contribution to society as an academic and Gleaner columnist, tells us why. You can read his article here.

Seaga explains clearly why the Privy Council is insisting that any new final Court of Appeal must be entrenched in the Constitution – this has to be done in order to prevent any future Government from abolishing the court if it makes any decisions that it doesn't like.

Entrenching the Caribbean Court of Justice as our final Court of Appeal will require (1) a referendum and (2) a majority of Jamaicans voting in favor of the new court.

Seaga thinks this will never happen. I think it won't happen any time soon.

What a relief !

Does this mean we get to keep the Queen ?

And by the way, for all you Seaga haters out there, he is a much better columnist that he ever was a politician. And had he been at the University of the West Indies all these years, it is hard to believe that the Faculty of Social Sciences would not now have an international reputation, instead of being a local brand of “intellectual ghetto”…….

“The Republic (Penguin Classics)” (Plato, Rachana Kamtekar)

“The Trial of Socrates” (I.F. Stone)

[posted with ecto]

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