Tag: Privy Council
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Francesca Jackson: Jamaica’s petition to King Charles on slavery reparations under s.4 Judicial Committee Act 1833: A constitutional analysis
On Monday 7th September 2026, Jamaica filed a petition with King Charles asking him to refer three specific questions on transatlantic slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (‘JCPC’) under s.4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833 (‘JCA’). The questions focus on whether enslavement in Jamaica was ever lawful and whether there is an obligation on…
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Richard Clayton QC: Will the Caribbean Court of Justice replace the Privy Council?
Logic suggests that replacing the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice (the CCJ) is not a question of whether – but when. Since the Norman Conquest the Privy Council has been the cabinet through which the monarch governed England. Its jurisdiction was based on the idea that “the King is the fountain of all…
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Richard Clayton: Transforming Judicial Selection Procedures: Privy Council Changes Trinidad High Court Selection Procedure
In A-G of Trinidad and Tobago v Maharaj the High Court and Court of Appeal in Trinidad decided that the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (which appoints High Court judges) should comprise just judges and ex judges. However, in an important new judgment delivered on 11 February 2019 the Privy Council reversed the Trinidad courts…
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Alex Peplow: A Curious Jurisdiction – Section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833
As a bit of light relief from the Brexit furore, I will be considering the jurisdiction conferred on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and how it came to be used to resolve a dispute between two rival claimants to a Scottish title – In the Matter of the Baronetcy of Pringle of Stichill…
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Graham John Wheeler: The British Overseas Territories and “Direct Rule”
In the wake of the Mossack Fonseca affair, there have been calls for London to impose “direct rule” on some of the British Overseas Territories which are used for offshore financial purposes. This blog post does not take a position on the merits of this proposal. Instead, it seeks to highlight two constitutional points which…
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Derek O’Brien: Judicial Independence in the Caribbean and Petitions Pursuant to Section 4 Judicial Committee Act
The case of Chief Justice of the Cayman Islands v The Governor and Judicial Legal Services Commission ([2012] UKPC 39) is, arguably, at least as interesting for the questions that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) did not answer as for the ones that it did and I will, therefore, address both in…
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Derek O’Brien and Se-shauna Wheatle: The Commonwealth Caribbean and the Uses and Abuses of Comparative Constitutional Law
The practice of judges engaging in a transnational judicial conversation about constitutional rights, by referring to the judgments of international human rights courts and other constitutional courts when interpreting their own domestic Bills of Rights, has been commented upon in detail by comparative constitutional law scholars, such as Christopher McCrudden and Anne-Marie Slaughter[1]. It still…