Poll: Majority of citizens of Antigua & Barbuda in favor of replacing Privy Council with Caribbean Court of Justice

The majority of people in Antigua & Barbuda favor replacing the London-based Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), according to an opinion poll released yesterday.

The poll, conducted by the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Research Services Inc. (CADRES), found that 62 percent of the 800 people polled during the period October 12-14 said they supported a move to the Trinidad & Tobago-based CCJ as the twin island-nation’s final court.

Antigua & Barbuda will vote in a referendum on November 6.

The opinion poll was devoted to an exploration of the referendum issue and sought to understand how citizens feel about the CCJ in principle and also how they plan to vote on November 6.

“In addition, questions as to major reasons why people supported and opposed the CCJ were explored in an effort to provide some amount of context on this issue,” the pollster said, adding that the methodology used was similar to that of previous CADRES polls in Antigua & Barbuda.

It said the face-to-face survey exercise was conducted by interviewers who administered a short, standardized questionnaire to approximately 800 respondents, who were randomly selected from all constituencies across Antigua & Barbuda.

According to CADRES, the majority of those polled – 62 percent – said they “supported the move to the CCJ” either now or in the future, while 17 percent said they “did not support the move to the CCJ” and 22 percent preferred “not to say” how they feel about this issue.

Thereafter, respondents were presented with a list of possible reasons why they would vote ‘for’ or ‘against’ the CCJ, and [were] asked to indicate which single reason appealed to them most.

Among those who supported the CCJ, the most compelling reason was the suggestion that the CCJ was “cheaper to access”, while those who opposed the CCJ thought that it would be “more open to political influence”.

CADRES said that responses to the central question of how people intend to vote at this time, if restricted to those committed to vote either “for” or “against”, demonstrate that the required threshold of 66.6 percent has narrowly been achieved at this time.

However, CADRES would caution that this outcome could be affected either by any variation in the margin of error of the poll (+/- 5 percent), or if the participation of the Barbudan voters (2 percent) shifts the pendulum away from the “yes” vote.

CADRES acknowledged that the views of Barbudans were not canvassed on this occasion, but noted that a 2016 poll did cover the island still recovering from the ravages of Hurricane Irma.

“Comparatively, we note a marginal improvement in the level of support for the CCJ. A plus 2 percent compared to a marginal reduction in the level of opposition – a minus two percent – which can easily be explained by the exclusion of Barbuda on this occasion, which was purely on account of our client’s timeline for completion.”

The CCJ was established by regional governments on 2001 to replace the Privy Council as the Caribbean’s final court. But while most of the regional countries are members of the court’s original jurisdiction, only Barbados, Belize, Dominica and Guyana are signatories to the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ, which also serves as an international tribunal interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs the regional integration movement. -(CMC)