Antigua & Barbuda referendum on Caribbean Court of Justice set for March 2017

Antigua & Barbuda will vote in a referendum by March 2017 on whether to retain the London-based Privy Council as its final court, even as a former prime minister warned that citizens were not fully educated on the issue.

Prime Minister Gaston Browne, in tabling the Constitutional Referendum Bill 2016 in Parliament yesterday, urged nationals to support the initiative to replace the Privy Council with the Trinidad & Tobago-based Caribbean Court of Justice that was established in 2001 as the region’s final appellate court.

The legislation outlined the procedures to be adopted in staging the referendum, and Browne said a two-thirds majority would be required for the referendum to succeed. “I have to admit that two-thirds is a tall order. If it was due primarily to representation in the House, clearly we have the two-thirds here.

“But the crafters of the Constitution decided that we must go beyond the two-thirds approval within the Parliament and have two-thirds of the voting population within the country vote ‘yes’ in favor of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), in order to have that transformational change,” Browne told legislators.

Antigua & Barbuda will join Grenada in staging a referendum on the CCJ.

Opposition leader Baldwin Spencer – who is also the immediate past prime minister – who has publicly announced his support for the CCJ, said it was also imperative for there to be much more public education programs on the CCJ/Privy Council debate so as to allow citizens to make an enlightened decision.
He also warned that the authorities run the risk of the referendum being voted against should it be held this year, as first proposed by the prime minister.

October 27 had originally been set as the date for the vote but this was pushed back following recommendations from the Opposition. -(CMC)