 A very good morning to you this Tuesday, the 28th of February in 2023. We are the Solution House of Assembly for this city. The bills before us are listened by the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Economic Development, the Youth Economy, Justice and National Security, Money laundering, prevention, amendment, first reading, Money business or Money services business amendment, first reading. By the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development, the Fisheries amendment, that is also for first reading, and by the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Economic Development, the Youth Economy, Justice and National Security, an amendment to the Constitution of Central Asia. Commencing the process for the, or yes, commencing the process for the ascension to the Caribbean Court of Justice CCJ as Central Asia's final pellet court as the replacement to the previous council. Well, what is the CCJ? The Caribbean Court of Justice is a unique court because it functions as two courts in one. In its original jurisdiction, it protects the rights of countries, businesses and citizens of the Caribbean nations under the revised Treaty of Charter Rights. In its appellate jurisdiction, it serves as the final court of appeal for a growing number of nations. With me is Mr. Michael Gaspard. This is to address the English option. The colonial option is to address the audience appellate in Central Asia which is in English. The government is trying to address it today and to adopt the audience appellate in Kawa'i Blamem, which is the CCJ that is established in Gobihoyo, in Trinidad. I am here to address it, but I want to say that I am here to address it. I want to say that I am here to address it. This is Dr. Kenny Antony. The CCJ came to me with this idea and it is a bill with a simple constitution. The government also has a lot of money to manage Covid-19 and also the Ministry of Agriculture that has presented a bill for fishing and also a lot of services to people with money laundering bills. This is to address the audience appellate in Central Asia which is in English. This is to address the audience appellate in Central Asia. The youth economy, justice and national security 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 and be it further resolved that the loan is repayable in 20 years after a great period of 3 years from the loan agreement date in 80 equal or approximately equal and consecutive quarterly installments. But the big bill today that the amendment to the constitution for St Lucia to commence the process of a session to the Caribbean Court of Justice do you know what the mission of the Caribbean Court of Justice is? Well, the CCJ strives to be a model of judicial excellence. It is committed to providing accessible, fair and efficient justice for the people of the states of the Caribbean community. The agreement establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice was signed on February 14, 2021 and we are back in the month of February when St Lucia is about to make this move. The agreement was signed by 10 countries in 201 and by a third or two in 2003, making the total of 12 countries. The countries which have signed the agreement establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice are Antigua Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitt's Nidwes, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. The Caribbean Court of Justice was inaugurated on Saturday, April 16, 2005. This is when the court formally began operations. The headquarters of the court also referred to the seat of the court is located in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Yes, Winston, that's where the English is. It's information that is very, very important under the establishment of CCJ, as well as CCJ, it's the last call in the Caribbean region that has simply pulled the English option that we have taken for example, the last call is in England with the Caribbean region called Winston, England it was established, to establish an audience in the Caribbean it was established on the 14th of February, that is 2 million, with the first minister in Tansala, Dr. Kenny Anthony, it was signed in North St. Lucie to establish the audience in Tansala. But today, what we are doing is to establish an audience in Tansala with the different countries that have signed, we have 10 countries in the region that have signed in Tansala with 12 countries in total. These countries like Winston, they have signed to establish the audience in Tansala. It's Antigua, Babad, Belize, Dominic, Guyan, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts, St. Lucie, St. Vincent, Surinam, and Trinidad, and Tobago. So, it's a great opportunity to establish a constitution because it can be built in the lower part of Tansala. It can be built in the lower part of Tansala but it can also be built in Winston because the government has no decision because the government has no majority to make a decision like that to establish a constitution that needs to be built three-fold so the government can have two-thirds majority with the government that has no choice to make a decision like that to make a decision. There is another important reason for considering Make a decision like that On page 28 of the Labour Party manifesto of the election of 2021, you the people under good governance, anti-corruption and constitutional matters. Number 4 commenced the process for the accession to the Caribbean Court of Justice as St Lucia's final appellate court as the replacement to the Privy Council. It is right there on page 28 of the St Lucia Labour Party manifesto. The St Lucia Labour Party having won nine seats in the parliament, have two independents, making it 13, I beg your pardon, sorry about that, 13 seats with two independents, making it a 15 to two majority in the House. And as a result, making it necessary for no referendum to be or to take place. Yes, what we have to do is that the government has decided that the Constitution of the country has to be able to make decisions in order to change the Constitution, to adopt the Constitution in order to change the Constitution, to go with many countries in order to adopt the Constitution. Since the change in the Constitution started on February 14, there are 2 million people in St Lucia to establish the Constitution. With Jody, since the following year, St Lucia has decided to enter the Salah audience, and it is a commitment that St Lucia has made under page 28 of the manifesto. The manifesto is written by the government, but it is not the government, sorry, it is the partisan, each partisan has his own election, you can put out a document before, and the side you have to do to put it, that's what you have to do with the government, that's the partisan and you have to put it under page 28, the word is that you have to take good governance, against corruption, with the constitution. The word is that you have to take good governance, against corruption, with the constitution, with the government, that's what you have to do with the government, that's what you have to do with the constitution. With its originals jurisdiction, the CCJ is an international court, it is the only court that has the authority to interpret the treaty, when there are big agreements concerning freedom of movement, trade and services, and movement of money within caracal countries, businesses and individuals can ask the court to interpret the treaty. Let us pray, Almighty God, by whom alone kings reign and princes decree justice, and from whom alone cometh all counsel, wisdom and understanding, we thine on worthy 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 all in our consultations, and grant that we have in thy fear always before our eyes, and lain aside all private interests, prejudices and partial affections. The result of all of our counsels may be to the glory of thy blessed name, the maintenance of true religion and justice, the safety, honour and happiness of the king, the public will, peace and tranquility of St. Lucia, and the united and knitted 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. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us all evermore. Amen. Good morning, honorable members. I beg to announce that His Excellency, the Governor-General, has been pleased to ascend to the agreement for the establishment of a partnership between member states of the Caribbean community and the African Export-Import Bank. I have received correspondence from the member from Miku North, advising that he is out of state attending the 62nd session of the OACPS Parliamentary Assembly and Intersectional Meetings of the ACPEU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels, Belgium. I have also received correspondence from the member for Castries South, advising that he is away on official business. Members may also be aware of the recent passing of former independent senator Henry Philip, who served for a period of four years beginning the 17th of June 1997. The office of the parliament extends condolences to his family and friends. And please permit me to extend belated building wishes to the honorable member for Grosjele. The Parliament of St. Lucia in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender Affairs, the Inter-American Commission on Women, and the country office of St. Lucia to the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States will be hosting a seminar on Friday the 3rd of March 2023, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. We look forward to all of our male MPs' participation and support, and we invite the general public to view Line Stream on NTN. Finally, I wish to welcome to the House, on behalf of honorable members, the former Chief Justice of the OACS Supreme Court, former President of the Caribbean Court of Justice, and current Chair of the CCJ Accession Committee, Sir Dennis Byron and other members of the committee, members of the St. Lucia Christian Council, and a cohort of law students of the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College. Statement by Ministers. Papers to be laid. Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. Mr. Speaker, I beg to lay the following papers, standing in my name. Statement No. 10 of 2023, Legal, Profession, Eligibility, Tia Murray Austin Order. Statement No. 12 of 2023, Excise, Tax, Amendment of Schedule 1, No. 2 Order. Statement No. 13 of 2023, Criminal Code Detention of Suspects during Police Investigations, Other Indicable Offences or Notices. Statement No. 14 of 2023, Fiscal Incentives, Zubeco, 1991 Limited Amendment Order. Statement No. 19 of 2023, Excise, Tax, Amendment of Schedule 1, No. 3 Order. Minister for Education. Mr. Speaker, I beg to lay the following papers, standing in the name of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Tourism, Investment, Creative Industries, Culture and Information. Statement No. 9 of 2023, Community Tourism Development, Form of Proposal for Partnership Agreement Regulations. Minister for Commerce. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I beg to lay the following papers, appearing in my name. Statement No. 11 of 2023, Price Control Amendment Order. No. 2 Order. And Statement No. 18 of 2023, Price Control Amendment No. 3 Order. Minister for Infrastructure. Mr. Speaker, I beg to lay the following papers, standing in my name. Statement No. 15 of 2023, Telecommunications Aeronautical and Maritime Mobile Satellite Service. Exemption, Starlink, Internet Services Limited Order. Statement No. 16 of 2023, Telecommunications Aeronautical Mobile Satellite Service. Exemption, Thales Avionics Inc. Order. Statement No. 17 of 2023, Telecommunications Aeronautical and Maritime Satellite Service. Exemption, Viacet Inc. Order. And Statement No. 20 of 2023, Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Designation of Inspector's Order. Motions, Prime Minister. Mr. Speaker, I beg to lay the following motion, standing in my name. Whereas it is provided by Section 13 of the Public Finance Management Act, Cap 15.0 on the Act, that the Minister of Finance, me, by an affirmative resolution of parliament, borrowed from a bank or other financial institution for the capital or current experience of government. And whereas it is further provided by Section 64 of the Act, that money borrowed by the government must be paid into an informed 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 dollars 5.220 million to finance the building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 2019 project. And whereas the loan is repairable in 20 years after the great period of three years from the loan agreement date in 80 equal, approximately equal and consecutive quarterly installments. And whereas the loan repayments 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 great period of three years following the date of the loan and on such later due date as the bank may specify in writing. And whereas interest is payable at a variable rate of 5.16 yuan on the amount of the principal of this bus and are standing from time to time, 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 resolved that the parliament authorizes the Minister for Finance to borrow from the Caribbean Development Bank the sum of US 5.22 million to finance the building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 2019 project. Be it for the resolve that the loan is repairable in 20 years after the great period of three years from the loan agreement date in 80 equal, approximately equal and consecutive quarterly installments. The loan payments comments 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 after a great period of three years following the date of the loan or on such later due date as the bank may specify in writing. Interest is payable at the variable rate of 5.16 yuan on the amount of the principal disburse and are standing from time to time, 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. Mr. Speaker, before I begin my explanation I just want honour members to note that the interest rate of this loan is 5.16 percent which demonstrates how interest rates have begun to climb due to the external environment, Mr. Speaker. Interest rates that we have absolutely no control over have begun to climb. So whereas normally loans of this type will attract an interest rate of 2 percent, 3 percent, this time we have to have a variable rate of 5.16 percent, Mr. Speaker. Something that we have absolutely no control of since we have no control over the capital markets and interest rates are increasing worldwide. So Senlusha is part of the world so Senlusha is not exempted from the increases in interest rates, Mr. Speaker. This resolution is seeking approval from the parliament to borrow the sum of 5.2 million U.S. dollars from the special funds reserves of the Caribbean Development Bank allocated from IDB COVID-19 OECS line of credit for the implementation of the Senlusha building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 2019 project. Mr. Speaker, the outbreak of COVID caused a spread rapidly across the world from December 2019 to 2022. A global pandemic was declared on March 11, 2020 by the WHO and approximately 633.2 million confirmed cases and more than 6.5 million deaths have been recorded across 221 countries and regions as of November 17, 2022. And as of November 17, 2022, a total of 12.8 million vaccine doses were administered. Like most of the other regional small island developing states, Senlusha was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the country recorded its first case in March 2020. From 2020, the government instituted various control measures including management of social gathering, the quarantine of suspected cases and management of identified positive cases, close of borders to regional international travel, sourcing of external medical support for the Cuban medical brigade and administering of vaccines. As of December 20, 2022, there have been 29,754 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 490 deaths in Senlusha. As of December 30, 2022, a total of 55,083 persons have been fully vaccinated, 5,159 partially vaccinated and 7,903 persons have received boosters. The pandemic, Mr. Speaker, has had a negative impact on all sectors of the society, social, economic, health, et cetera. The increase in demand on the health sector brought about by COVID-19 has undermined major progress in attaining the Sustainable Development Goal number three, good health and well-being for all. Consultations with various stakeholders on the means of health and wellness identified the COVID-19 disruptions constrained across, constrained access to quality health care services including essential services. Health care personnel were profoundly impacted. And, Mr. Speaker, I want to use this opportunity again to thank the health care professionals who assisted us and who continued to work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Speaker, the overall expected impact of the virus, of the virus project is to enhance the capacity of the public health care system to respond to current and emergent health security threats because it is said that there may be more pandemics to come. So we need to bolster the resilience in the health sector of St. Lucia. Mr. Speaker, the expected outcomes of this loan or what the money be used for is expected to improve capacity for surveillance, case detection and monitoring. The establishment of initiatives to break the chain of transmission of the illness and improve service delivery capacity. In order to achieve this, the project would comprise of the following. One, project support services, improving response to COVID-19 and emergent health threats. Two, minor works. And three, project management and auditing services costs. Mr. Speaker, let me explain the project components. Component number one, improving response to COVID-19 and emergent health threats. Subcomponent number one, E, improving surveillance, case detection and monitoring. This subcomponent will support actions to enhance surveillance, facilitate case detection and monitoring and improve data collection recording. This includes the supply and installation of lab equipment, the expansion of the COVID-19 response unit, procurement of consumables, information and communications technology, equipment and other resources, as well as footage and personnel for the COVID-19 response unit. Subcomponent number one, B, interrupting the chain of transmission. This component supports the provision of resources to halt or reverse the spread of COVID-19 and other emerging and reemerging illnesses. This will be on communication, procurement of medical equipment, procurement of transportation, reimbursables for services provided. Mr. Speaker, reimbursables for services provided are very important because there are a number of people who gave up their hotels to enable us to provide quarantine for the people who are diagnosed as positive. This will have to be paid, Mr. Speaker. Subcomponent one, C, strength and service delivery for critical care of COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 affected people. This component will support the procurement of resources for the million highway medical complex, the respiratory hospital and the public dental care unit and support staff. Component number two, minor works. Subcomponent two, A, interrupting the chain of transmission. This component supports minor works for enhancement of the respiratory hospital which provides critical care for persons affected by COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. The activities below are urgently needed to provide a safe and conducive working environment for staff, safeguard the integrity of the physical infrastructure as well as support the requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Act for national and national protocols for infection control and safety. Subcomponent two, B, strength and service delivery for critical care of COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 affected people. This subcomponent supports the continuity of care and will focus on dental health care. The focus will be on the rehabilitation of dental clinics to improve the observance of protocols and improve safety accommodation for clients and staff. Component number three, project management and auditing services. This segment of the project comprises several consultancies that will assist in the execution of key activities of the project and which are aimed at enhancing efficiency in the procurement process, ensuring the conduct of the end of project audit and covering other project management resources. Project management resources includes the establishment of a project coordinating unit. The fallen persons will be engaged, a project coordinator, a risk communications consultant, a procurement officer, a procurement specialist, a social inclusion and gender mainstream and training consultant firm for the design of supervision of books to improve the delivery of health care at the respiratory and dental health clinics. Mr. Speaker, this project is expected to be implemented over a period of 13 months. Mr. Speaker, as I read before, the loan is repairable in 20 years after a great period of three years and the government will repay the amount of joint from the loan account in 80 equal or approximately equal payments, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, and the loan is at a variable rate and there is no commitment charge on this loan. And, Mr. Speaker, I spoke of the issues as they relate to interest rates, Mr. Speaker, which will have repercussions in the future. Mr. Speaker, this project presents to our country an opportunity to sustain the funding of many initiatives that have commenced in the fight against COVID-19 and to secure financing for new initiatives aimed at strengthening our health care system and combating any further spread of COVID-19. Mr. Speaker, I think all members of this horrible house will agree that this loan is essential. The COVID-19 pandemic caused severe disruption in the health services of the country and it also caused social issues, Mr. Speaker. Social issues, issues in education. Many children could not go to school because there were no devices. They could not home school because there were no devices, Mr. Speaker. And many people suffered from the fact that they could not go out. They could not socialize. They could not entertain, Mr. Speaker. So apart from the health effects, there were serious psychological effects of COVID. And I think people have not even started to understand what the impact of COVID may have had on our society and on our people, Mr. Speaker. So Mr. Speaker, if you notice, there is a part of that loan we use for social inclusion projects where we try to do research to really find out evidence-based, Mr. Speaker, evidence-based on the impact of COVID on the country, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my members to support this motion as we continue our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. I thank you, Mr. Speaker. Members, the question is that be it resolved that Parliament authorizes the Minister for Finance to borrow from the Caribbean Development Bank the sum of U.S. $5.22 million to finance the building capacity and resilience of 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, 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 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 disbursed and outstanding from time to time. 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. The member for view for North. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Good morning to colleagues and everyone else. Mr. Speaker, I stand to support the resolution which was moved by the Prime Minister and Member of Parliament for Casteries East. Building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 2019 project. Mr. Speaker, the loan amounts to approximately 14 million EC dollars, and I want to spend a few moments just to explain to Honourable Members and to the people of St. Lucia why it's important to continue to invest in processes, facilities, equipment and so on to fight COVID-19, even though many people think that the COVID-19 pandemic is over. We continue to have a number of COVID-19 cases in St. Lucia. Just recently, Mr. Speaker, you heard of the emergence of the sub variant on our shores, and therefore it's very, very important, not only for COVID-19, but also as we prepare to usher in a new era of universal health coverage that we prepare our health system. The COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Speaker, revealed deficiencies in the capacity of the country to respond to health sector-related challenges. Many problems, we knew of many problems in the health sector, Mr. Speaker, but COVID-19 forced us to take a second and a third look and to take a serious look at our health sector to ensure that we do much better in the future. Health care facilities, including dental clinics, Mr. Speaker, continue to be under serious pressure, overburden and require resources. There is an urgent need to upgrade the system to strategically position the country to respond to present and emerging challenges, as the PM said, Mr. Speaker. We want to ensure as a government that we take on the responsibility of identifying and responding to the drivers of transmission, COVID-19 transmission, and to manage the post-COVID-19 transition era. Also, Mr. Speaker, this funding will assist the government of St. Lucia to ensure that we position the system to meet our current needs and to face future challenges. This funding also, Mr. Speaker, will entail the replacement of non-functional ambulances and other non-functional equipment which will enhance the availability of the services, allowing persons who are affected by COVID-19 and other conditions to receive the necessary care with urgency and efficiency. Mr. Speaker, the loan financing will also ensure the facilities are fit for purpose, equipped with modern equipment, infection prevention control protocols, as the PM said, and we are working on processes which will continue to integrate the COVID-19 prevention measures throughout the healthcare system at our health centers and so on. It will also help to boost the national lab with equipment, with personnel. It will assist us to do more dental outreach. So we are hoping, Mr. Speaker, to purchase a mobile dental unit which will move around the length and breadth of St. Lucia to assist. It will also provide support to the grocery poly clinic, the dental unit, and the lacklary dental unit to assist with meeting COVID-19 operational standards and general guidelines. This funding, very importantly, Mr. Speaker, will help our psychosocial program and also psychological support. And PM mentioned the fact that COVID-19 impacted us not just with unfortunate deaths and tragedy and so on, but also the country we are still going through a lot of psychological impacts of COVID-19 which we must deal with. It will also help with some much-needed financing for the respiratory hospital. This will include improvements to the plumbing, the hot water system, the laundry area, drainage for the kitchen, the laundry area, and maintenance works to the radiology department, among other things. And, Mr. Speaker, we are preparing to launch our urban poly clinic at the Victoria Hospital site, and all of these improvements will clearly assist. So, Mr. Speaker, we are here to pay $14 million for COVID-19. Mr. Speaker, we are done with COVID-19. We are done with COVID-19, because it has always affected everyone here. We have COVID-19 here. We have a very difficult system here with COVID-19. We must keep the system safe. We must eat quickly because of the COVID-19 pandemic that is happening in England. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that we must not only eat the ambulance, but also eat the ambulance-neph. We must also buy a health center that will help us. But this is not an equipment. It is not good enough. We must also bring a machine to help these patients. We can help them with the dental unit. We have a dentist with a brush that is not important. But if we don't have a brush with a brush, it will also make the most of the system. Because the health center has $14 million that we have come here to help the health center to make this system more solid. We must also eat the equipment of Victoria L'Hôpital. We must also bring an urban polyclinic to help the health center to make this system more solid. We must also bring an urban polyclinic to help the health center to make this system more solid. We must also bring an urban polyclinic to help the health center to make this system more solid. We must also send $14 million to the health center to help the health center to make this system more solid. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member for Library Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of the resolution brought to this honorable House by the Minister of Finance to borrow from the Caribbean Development Bank the sum of $5.2 million to finance the building capacity and resilience of the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 19 project. Mr. Speaker, this government believes that sustainable inclusive development requires us to paraphrase Dr. Jean Léon, the President of the CDB, to build a resilient ecosystem and encompassing all dimensions of resilience, including social, financial, economic, institutional, environmental and yes, Mr. Speaker, health. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say that our government is taking steps in all of these dimensions of resilience to ensure that we reduce the vulnerability of our economy to, of course, the vagaries of the shocks emanating from the global economy, natural disasters and pandemics. Mr. Speaker, we are all aware of the massive and unprecedented damage that the impact of COVID-19 had on our economy. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, St. Lucia was one of the economies in the world hardest hit by the pandemic, suffering a deep and unparalleled contraction in economic activity of 24.4%. Mr. Speaker, the IMF has indicated in its latest article for report that this is the largest output decline on record in St. Lucia. It is the view of our government that the COVID pandemic was mismanaged by the former government from misguided fiscal policies that did not mitigate the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. We have articulated before, Mr. Speaker, the reasons for this previously in debates in this honorable house and there is no need to revisit it, Mr. Speaker, at this time. There is no doubt, however, that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the structural weaknesses in the economy and clearly showed the need for us to address the structural weaknesses in our economy. There is no doubt, Mr. Speaker, that there is a need to reduce the structural challenges to growth and boost productivity by diversifying our economy through greater focus on agriculture and in particular food security, private sector development, exports, increasing energy, independence, and addressing labor skill shortages and shortcomings through the establishment of the youth economy. Mr. Speaker, this government has taken a strategy of a deliberate and focused approach of rebuilding our economy and our policies are beginning to bear fruit. After recording growth of 12.2% in 2021, St. Lucia has recorded significant growth in 2022. In fact, while we await the data from the statistics department, the ECCB has estimated St. Lucia's growth at a whopping 15.88% in 2022. Yes, Mr. Speaker, you heard right, 15.88%. But, Mr. Speaker, we will have ample time to debate the successful economic policies of our government shortly in the debate on the estimates and, of course, the policy debate. This growth estimate by the ECCB is much higher than the initial IMF forecast of 9.1% and reflects the success of the favorable policies pursued by this government led by a capable, competent, and highly proficient economies, our prime minister, minister for finance, and the member for cash receipts. The sustained robust economic recovery of the economy is also taking place, Mr. Speaker, amid significant headwinds from the economic repercussions from the Russia war in Ukraine, resulting in a lowering of global growth, increase inflation, higher interest rates, high oil prices, and supply side bottlenecks. But this prime minister and this government is ensuring that this economy is taking off, notwithstanding the turbulence of the moment. The IMF, in its latest world economic output in January of this year, cut global economic growth in 2023 from 3.4% to 2.9% and inflation is projected at 6.6%. The IMF further forecasts that the balance of risk to growth are tilted to the downside, particularly possibly having severe health outcomes associated with the reopening of China and the ongoing Russia war in Ukraine being major risk factors causing global growth to contract even further. The reopening of China is likely to boost economic growth, but that there are risks associated with the transmission of COVID across borders and having potential adverse impacts associated with the spread of the virus. Mr. Speaker, the world has learned to adapt and adjust to COVID, and the reopening of the world has been largely successful, with St. Lucia being one of the most successful countries in its swift economic recovery. However, Mr. Speaker, COVID remains with us, and we must not rest and become complacent. At the 44th meeting of Heads of Karikam, recently held in the Bahamas between 15th and 17th of February, less than two weeks ago, Heads of Government reaffirmed the need for member states to remain vigilant and continue to carry out active surveillance and promote the use of established prevention and control guidelines to curb further the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. The Heads emphasized, Mr. Speaker, the need for a more comprehensive approach to COVID-19, monkeypox, and other regional health security threats. In this regard, Mr. Speaker, I wish to accentuate in this parliament the decision by the World Bank to establish a pandemic fund which will finance critical investments to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response activities at national, regional, and global levels, with a focus on low and middle income countries. We must not drop our guard, Mr. Speaker, and ensure that we take the necessary action to be proactive and address the impact of COVID-19. It is to be noted, Mr. Speaker, that CAFA reported 12 cases of COVID-19 subvariant XBB1.5, which has been circulating in China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and some other countries. According to the Chief Medical Officer, the confirmed cases are distributed in most districts with the northern and central regions most affected. According to John Hopkins University, this strain of the virus, which accounted for less than 10 percent of cases in the U.S., now accounts for more than 25 percent of cases. It is said that the virus contains more mutation to evade immunity than any other variant. It is further said by the experts that the virus has a mutation that is helping the virus to better bind to cells, thus making it more transmissible. The experts have indicated, Mr. Speaker, that someone infected by an earlier strain of COVID is likely to be reinfected with XBB1.5, given that it is more immune, evasive, and a person's immune response naturally decreases over time following infection. This reminds us, Mr. Speaker, that we must constantly be on our guard as new mutations of COVID-19 are likely and ensure that we equip ourselves with the tools available to combat this dangerous virus. This loan, Mr. Speaker, from the Caribbean Development Bank in the amount of US$5.2 million will go a long way in strengthening the capacity of the health system to respond to health threats and emergencies. It must be seen within the context as one of the important channels of assistance that will be required for St. Lucia's strategic holistic response to COVID-19 to ensure that we can keep our economy open and to ensure that people are protected, especially the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions who are vulnerable to this disease. Mr. Speaker, as I prepare to close, I want to, of course, express that I'm sure that we can all agree that this is a small price to ensure that our economy continues its rapid recovery from COVID-19 and our people remain safe. The loan is highly concessionary and in that it is repayable over 20 years in 80 equal installments with a free-aggress period at a variable interest rate of 5.16% on the amount of the principal disburses and outstanding. Our government is a credible, trustworthy and honest government, Mr. Speaker. We will only go through credible agencies like the CDB. Having said so, Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for granting me leave to make this very brief intervention and therefore, I yield the floor, Mr. Speaker. A member from MicroSalt. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would say to you that, Mr. Speaker, one of the things that was very noticeable this morning, which seems to be a continuation of policy, strategy, misunderstanding, don't know. Just celebrated our 44th independence and unprecedented, never in the history of this country, Mr. Speaker. Four people were killed. One person, sadly, by a traffic accident. And since that, we have not received one report from this government. As this is business as usual. Nobody has said a word. Opening opportunity today, Mr. Speaker, with a thought we'd have heard from one of the two ministers of security. One of them. Mr. Speaker, the member is misleading the house. Yes, he's misleading the house as usual. There is only one minister of national security. There is only one minister of national security. Mr. Speaker, we have a Minister of National Security and the Prime Minister, and we have a Minister of Home Affairs. At the end of the day, two ministers. And we have not responded. Mr. Speaker, I see there are people taking up your role. So, Mr. Speaker, I felt it was important to be able to say that, that because we got an opportunity for ministers' reports, and something as important as that, that that was, that opportunity was, was not taken. Now, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, every situation we were borrowing five million US dollars, and I'm glad that the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Finance, I see you like to be on the track. Then just open up DSH and you can be back on track. So, Mr. Speaker, five million dollars, US, which is about just over 11 million dollars easily, Mr. Speaker. And I'm glad that the Minister of Finance pointed out that the change, the economic changes in the world, that some of the concessional funds that we would have normally gotten at substantially lower interest rates, that those interest rates are going up, which means that we have to be extremely mindful of the amount of money that we're borrowing. I'm happy to hear the member from Labry give us a piece of information that one year has gone by, Mr. Speaker, even though we've passed the new Financial Management Act and there's a requirement for there to be update reports on what's taking place in the economy. Who in St. Lucia, Mr. Speaker knows what the unemployment rate is? Who knows? Who knows what the amount of borrowing that we've had? Who knows what the economic growth is? Who knows? We've been told nothing, Mr. Speaker. And again, we have members on the other side, members, Mr. Speaker, who seem to want to use the word and the term evidence-based. Everything is, leave it to the science. I see now we're leaving the potholes to science. That's how we've gotten to now. We're going to fix potholes by using the science. And now we want to talk about the evidence, but we just want to use it as a term and we don't want to substantiate it in any way. So let me bring up the evidence, Mr. Speaker, because the member from Labry also made mention of the mismanagement by my administration over COVID. From the time of the beginning of COVID until the elections, Mr. Speaker, there were 85 deaths and 5,529 cases. And I want to put that in perspective. When we got COVID, Mr. Speaker, none of us understood what COVID was. And therefore, like the rest of the world, we were in the dark and we were implementing policies and strategies to protect people's lives. And then it became very clear, Mr. Speaker, very quickly that we had to also now include livelihoods. The option of St. Lucia remaining shut down, like many other parts of the world, we did not have the reserves of cash, Mr. Speaker, to be able to do that. Excuse me. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, can I respond, Mr. Speaker? I don't want to go off track here. But I want to bring the floor is mine. Thank you. There's this fallacy that the government keeps on portraying that somehow the investment in DSH came at the financial expense of the state. They have been in government for over 18 months. In fact, I'm in court, Mr. Speaker, with one of the members over allegations that he made that DSH was using CIP funds to fund their program. Up until now, it's not happened. You prove you proved nothing. You said, Mr. Speaker, the member from Cascary Central said publicly. Remember from Microsoft, there is a motion before you. And I would hope that your contribution can at least, even if a fleeting glance touched that motion, you are strained on a tangent that I can't allow you to proceed on. Please keep to the motion. Why, Mr. Speaker, only if you would have followed your own advice. Mr. Speaker, the members indicated that DSH used funds from CIP. Member for Microsoft, what is the relevance of the funds for DSH with the motion before you? Mr. Speaker, members on the other side alleged that we mismanaged the economy during the COVID period. Members also indicated that we had our priorities wrong and we put horses before hospitals. So in many ways, and that's why I asked you, Mr. Speaker, they admit that and I'm asking to respond to that. May I have your permission, Mr. Speaker, to respond to that? That was stated in the debate this morning? Correct, right there. The member from Labry said that we mismanaged the resources and other members now just said that we put horses before hospitals. Right, Minister, but are you now making aside official part of the record? And did I respond? Very well, Mr. Speaker. Again, we're going to want to avoid the truth. Here we are, one person in the house and you're not giving me any liberty. I'm going to have to respond to 15 people, but you know the people here to see for themselves. Member for Microsoft, when I'm speaking, you take your seat. You don't speak together with me. Be careful. Member for Cassidy Central, be careful. Member for Microsoft, if your allegations against the chair, please be very careful. Proceed, please. Mr. Speaker, my allegations against the chair were taken to the court and therefore I allowed an independent entity to determine who was right and who was wrong. But, Mr. Speaker, I want to see that we had, in a period in which we did not know what the science was, appeared in which we were awoken one day where all of the air flights to St. Lucia stopped, air traffic globally stopped, any international trade. Everything came to a grinding halt and government's revenue went from $110 million a month to $55 million a month, Mr. Speaker. We did not have, we did not have enough respirators in this country. We did not have a dedicated respiratory center. The prime minister made alluded to it where we had to use hotels in order to create quarantines and to create new protocols, protocols that did not exist and I'm proud of the fact, Mr. Speaker, that many of the countries in the Caribbean look to St. Lucia protocols in order to be implemented. And what's the reality? Because let's talk about the evidence base. Let's talk about the evidence base. In an 18-month period of time, with the unknown, with no resources and having to go through everything for the first time, we ended up having, sadly, 85 deaths and 5,529 cases, Mr. Speaker, in 18 months. In an era of unknown, uncertainty, nothing. And at the same time, we reopened the economy, Mr. Speaker, because we knew that those monies that we could not provide to the people of St. Lucia and we found a safe way to protect people's lives and protect people's livelihoods. And as a result of that, Mr. Speaker, many of the hotels were able to reopen and many of the staff members got their jobs back and many of the farmers were able to supply stuff to them and many of the taxi drivers were able to stay in business and some of the tours, Mr. Speaker, were able to reopen. So much so, Mr. Speaker, so much so, that by 2022 that we had more U.S. arrivals in St. Lucia than we ever had in the history of St. Lucia. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if you go and look at the statistics with Barbados that is normally substantially more arrivals than St. Lucia, Mr. Speaker, we had more U.S. arrivals 155,000. Then Barbados had total arrivals of 144,000. We had 200,000 arrivals. And as a result of that, Mr. Speaker, and the combination of the foresightness to be able to expedite construction projects, construct projects, we're able to see a 12.5% recovery in the economy. 12.5%. The same Barbados had 1.5%. The same Barbados had 1.5%. St. Lucia was the second fastest growing economy in Caracol, only behind Guyana. And Guyana never suffered, but Guyana had the benefit of now opening up an entire new industry, which is the old industry. The closest economy to St. Lucia was Dominica at 6%. Now let's make the comparison. Let's just follow the science. In the last 18 months, we've had 327 deaths. We've had 24,000 cases. They talk about a government that cares, a government that has the creativity and the capacity to be able to manage both things. We're seeing it over and over again, Mr. Speaker. This government is lost, whether it's agriculture, whether it's the roads, whether it's tourism. You know, Mr. Speaker, it's amazing to me the number of things that they keep sound. How is it again? How is it again? Okay, Mr. Speaker, that carnival cruise lines is not coming to St. Lucia and not a word. Why? Why are they not coming to St. Lucia? Why are they going to everywhere else in the Caribbean? So, Mr. Speaker, I want to say, Mr. Speaker, in terms of managing coal, the ability to access funds at a concessional basis, to rehabilitate Victoria Hospital and make it into a respiratory center. But that came at having to expedite the opening of OKEU. So it means we had to run two hospitals. In fact, the cost of running Victoria was very little different than what the cost was as a respiratory center or even as a hospital. The Coast Guard, the Marine Police, Mr. Speaker, who were trying to protect our borders, were burning through engines two, three times faster than we had before. The fuel that was being burned, the overtime that was being created, the extra staff for security, the extra staff in terms of bringing and picking up people at their homes, the cost, Mr. Speaker, of allowing the solutions to return home where we provided the quarantine area for them. We fed them. We provided security for them. All those expenses were being incurred by the state. Even when we had NIC, Mr. Speaker, NIC was not designed to pay people for a loss of income during a situation like this. We had to find a creative way and I was very glad that the NIC Board cooperated with us in order to at least provide some money for some of the persons who had been making contributions for a longer period of time. But in a large part, solutions had to bear that burden. And this is why, Mr. Speaker, that you would have expected that a government that says that they care, a government that tries to convince us that they're putting us first or not making us worse, that now want to talk about the evidence of COVID, that's the hypocrisy that I can't understand. Who is the government that went and had a march on October of 2020? After we've been through all the things that we went through, Mr. Speaker, all of the things we went through, they saw no problem. Go and have a march up until the march, Mr. Speaker. We had 28 cases and no deaths. Understand that? 28 cases and no deaths up until the period of the march. And these responsible people, these people who care, these people who follow the science, these people who want evidence-based decisions, took it upon themselves to go and march. Okay, Mr. Speaker? Sorry? Mr. Speaker, is he speaking to me? If you don't want me to respond, Mr. Speaker, please ask them to let me be heard inside. Please. Mr. Speaker, either you're going to allow me to respond to the rebutting or I'll stop the rebutting. No, what? It's either you listen to me or you don't speak. Mr. Speaker, these are the rules. We've affirmed that this is your house. This is not being done objectively. Do as you please, Mr. Speaker. Do not debate with me. You cannot come and tell me on this. I'm not supposed to trust you, Mr. Speaker. Remember, you do not debate with me. And if you proceed to debate with me, I will ask you to take your seat. Please proceed. Mr. Speaker, I'm asking you to provide with the basic protection that you're supposed to be protecting me. If you want me to be able to speak and not respond, ask them to listen to me inside. Remember, I'm asking you for the final time to continue. If you do not wish to continue, you shall take your seat. Mr. Speaker, I'm simply asking for your protection. Remember, please take your seat. Mr. Speaker, please. Please take your seat. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to do a step better. Okay? Mr. Speaker, I have lost all confidence in you as a speaker. Remember, I'm surprised to see that you're here, Mr. Speaker. Okay? And if in fact, if in fact that this is going to continue and one person representing the opposition, and I want to remind all of that, one person representing the opposition to be able to speak, and you all don't want to allow that person to speak, shame on you all. But that's okay. I will leave you all to the people of San Lucia. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Dead weight. Members, members, members, please. Members, members, please. Members, please. Although you are respect to the people. Members. Members of Crosby Central, Mr. Speaker, right. I just see it was never my intention to have spoken on this bill. I mean, one would expect that it was straight forward. It was meant which dealt with the COVID ramifications and one would have thought that persons would be wise enough not to open the door but again you see Mr. Speaker when one wants to enter the realms of political relevance and he or she seeks embrace by his own political party he must show that his metaphorically the people of the day and he speaks of COVID mismanagement I could not believe Mr. Speaker that this was the leader of the opposition there I could not believe it have the audacity to talk about mismanagement speaks of COVID the very man who took 7.3 million dollars of taxpayers money to give to his brother-in-law gave to his brother-in-law the people of this country are yet to fully recover the 7.3 million dollars has the audacity to talk about mismanagement and then he speaks of crime and he has nothing he never made a statement apart from one time when they killed a restaurant owner a reputed one you know well I don't even know his shame I don't know how much melanin was in his skin but that was the only time Mr. Speaker COVID did not hit St. Lucia alone so whilst he hides behind the mask of COVID COVID was a global pandemic it did not reside in St. Lucia yet he took our economy from the best in the OECS and delivered it to Village JPL at the worst contraction was almost everywhere but we recorded the most contraction in the Caribbean and faith was in the world that is the man's record that is his record Mr. Speaker so when you hear him talking of you know hell we are borrowing 14 million EC to be paid over 80 months which is seven and a half years the man wants to complain but 11 days before the election Mr. Speaker he sought to enter into an agreement with Fresh Start for 70 million to be paid in one year at a daily interest rate of one percent daily you know daily interest rate once you get a bill for 228 million every day you don't pay 280 something thousand dollars you know I don't even want to talk about that I'm all here I don't even want to talk about it Mr. Speaker it's a short point for me it's a very short point we own them all the man sold it for 13 and a half million dollars turn around and rent it at a million a month are you hearing me Mr. Speaker you know 13 and a half and I'm not blaming the beneficiaries I'm blaming persons like him without an iota of of of membrane where his brain capacity ought to occupy in there because Mr. Speaker who does that you own a facility we had already expended over 50 million dollars on the facility you turn around sold it for 13 and a half and there this Mr. Speaker he sold it outright for 13 and a half million in the agreement we had to give me the man back 12 out of it to retrofit for us so we are left with one and a half million dollars and then to pay almost a million dollars in rent for 16 and a half years you know who does that and you today want to talk about management this has been honestly I have a list and when he saw I went for it he knew you know I have about 20 misdeeds the local bees the tea working you know all of those things he stayed in a hotel at 2 000 pounds a night 2 000 pounds a night he cares about us he cares about us the the the vehicle he drove with the prime minister inherited I don't know why he did that but again being as humblance philip jb is he would always do mr. Speaker only now this vehicle goes off when he leaves his home in the morning until he gets back in the night the vehicle runs all day you know even if he's not in there he says he never knows as what at what time he will live so it has to be cool you know and you talk about you care about people you know mr. Speaker some of those things when you hear those things coming from you know the range developers 32 million local be 32 million per man do 13 million you know sandals collected money on our behalf it knows money they owe us and you give them a reprieve they merely were the repository of our money you turn around and ask them to keep it you know and we are suffering we are suffering our health care mr. Speaker this government will have to do something we need to raise revenue mr. minister of finance we need to raise revenue you cut the vat rate by two and a half percent depriving this government of about 270 million dollars over five years and in addition to that you squandered everything that we had and today you have the audacity to open your mouth and talk about mismanagement mr. Speaker let me let me stop i am waiting for the real i'm quem de la quem the debates on the accession to the ccg i thank you minister for finance thank you mr. Speaker just for the purposes of the record mr. Speaker i just want to clarify a few things you are you are now salmon yeah yeah for the purpose of real companies i need to clarify a few things mr. Speaker because you know um the leader of the opposition says a lot of things and his his surrogates repeats these things particularly on social media and some people believe it mr. Speaker mr. Speaker the leader of the opposition when the united august party lost government there was no delta variant in kovid the devs began after the delta variant before july 2021 there was no delta variant the devs in the world increased after the delta variant was found point number one mr. Speaker point number two mr. Speaker this government had absolutely no results when dealt when kovid hit us this minister of finance he run the country with deficits on the primary accounts this is the economy he managed any student of economics will tell you you cannot run a country with a deficit on the primary account that means he did not have enough money to pay salaries and his low interest that's the economy managed that was before kovid talk about managing the economy mr. Speaker that was before kovid so when kovid hit the country had absolutely no resources so he had to go to the n i c to amend the laws of the n i c to borrow money for income support that's the economy managed every other island gave some form of income support without going to the n i c but he had no money he had squandered the resources of the country so we have to go to the n i c and this government has pledged at some point to repair the workers of this country the money that he took from them when he gets the post on about evidence and grand charging and trying to pay to the gallery because he thinks he's superior mr. Speaker we can't allow to continue secondly mr. Speaker he comes and he again misleads the house the march we had the march that the party had we got permission from the ministry of health there was written permission the chief medical officer gave us permission to march and there is absolutely no evidence that says after the march there was an increase in the square of kovid no evidence that related to the march mr. Speaker but as usual that's what he does he comes and he postures and believes he can fool you that no one sends mr. Speaker mr. Speaker we talk about kovid after kovid st lucer had the greatest level of GDP contraction the six in the world that's the economy he managed the six and i want to this is on the record st lucer had the six highest decline in the economy in the world that's the economy he managed you know why because he made no provision in the better days he used the money to do all kind of election projects he gave he gave out a thousand acres of land at one dollar per acre that's what he did so that contraction caused by kovid and by his mismanagement these are facts mr. Speaker he mismanaged he called me the point that when we got into government after he borrowed 302 million dollars for kovid this government we only had 15 million dollars of borrowed funds to use to run this country that these are the facts mr. Speaker these are the facts mr. Speaker mr. Speaker this leader of the opposition he kept the millennium the new hospital closed after when he came into government he found a transition committee led by dr steven king with all the plans in place to open the hospital he kept we had help from the french government there was there was equipment from the french from the europeans with this figure to open this hospital he kept it closed and you know you you know what he did he put the country through a debt which we have to come back to this honorable house next week a debt of 15 million dollars to pay people to open the hospital and you know what happened local people led by dr king opened that hospital dr king and mr chargers that's what he did mr. Speaker that's what he did mr. Speaker so when he comes talking about evidence and grand charges and believe he's some superior being that i can come and talk down to to be a senator mr. Speaker never happen the facts are against him because he's a failed prime minister so mr. Speaker you know you come into this honorable house and you come believing that many understand that the country is greater than the politics you come and you believe that many understand that the democratic process has worked and the people have chosen their governments that's what you think but mr. Speaker the arrogance and the conceits and the superiority complex remains so he can't understand that the people have rejected him mr. Speaker he can't understand but you have to understand it again because the people reject him again so mr. Speaker i want to ask members to support this this this motion mr. Speaker because this motion is about the health of the country and look at how this government operates all the constituency of miku is where one of the best health health health and wellness centers exists in in the country and what we've done since we've got the government we haven't diminished it means because you know there is evidence there is evidence with this figure is that this government when it came into power into government they found a project in the world bank to for retaining structures in entubo the project had been approved by the world bank mr. Speaker because you know because i was parliamentary representative for castries east and in their haste and in their belief that they can get me to lose the seat you know they wrote the world bank and the evidence available and they transferred the the money that was available for the retaining structures and if you go to now mr. Speaker you'll see them the area is the precarious position because of the rivers you know mr. Speaker they wrote the world bank to ask them to change the project and take it away from castries east and put the cash office that's what these guys did as a government heroine they have center in larry source means we are he cannot deny these things that's why he has to go and charge that's why he has to grandchild but he will never be able to come in shock anybody down that's why he has to come in grand charge mr. Speaker so the medical the wellness center in miku we've kept it going we haven't closed it we've kept it going mr. Speaker this government is on record as doing more for opposition constituencies and some of my colleagues correct me about that mr. Speaker we haven't stopped anything happening in opposition constituencies we've owned health centers been built in shows i'll show that probably have more centers for capital anyway no we continued we never stopped me continued mr. Speaker we continued he built the road 15 million dollars and he and he comes in the problem with the leader with this leader the opposition is he believes that he can lie and he can lie and people must believe he lied because he said he spent 15 million dollars direct award to build a road in view for south 15 million dollars mr. Speaker you know an independent study that will not be says that that road was built for the asset that's what the study says not me say it any position we've taken mr. Speaker is based on evidence from other people not us but you know the problem mr. Speaker is that lies and mistrust and misinformation is what he is the party that he leads that's what he's all about mr. Speaker but mr. Speaker the time the time is there and the same way the people of Senutia rejected these lies on the 26th of july the person shall we reject these lies again come and talk about crime mr. Speaker this lead out your position as prime minister does the vote for training for the police was zero you know how he gave the police equipment by having dinners dressing people in yellow and let them go to dinner and say they have modeling fellas that never modeling their life and people modeling and that's how the money they use to give police equipment mr. Speaker tokenize it at zero tokenism that's what he did for training for the police what have we done we've spoken to our partners we've spoken to the french it's one of the taiwanese it's one of the americans we have a security pact with the french mr. Speaker to help us in our fight against crime when he was in government on one weekend there were three mothers we never blamed him so they come and they pretend as if this crime thing is something that you must blame the labor party for i must bring the government for mr. Speaker we have never we've come in this honorable house and we said let's get it's just like covid when we just covered we came in said in front they used to laugh at me for wearing my mask they slept in laugh at me when my mask so mr. Speaker when you see he comes and he grand charges crime we what this you know lead out your position when there was a symposium for crime that the minister for national security whatever he was held at infrastructure he went to Jamaica to campaign he never attended it i talk about caring about crime talking about caring about crime i was there i was there so mr. Speaker when you try to politicize crime you want to you must ask him what are the tangible things that he did to combat the crime situation in this country we have said that the crime situation is too high we've made the point we've we're doing work with the French on the forensic lab we are right now we are working with the Jamaicans on training the police very soon the police have already got nearly 20 vehicles including bicycles just last week last week i signed an award to give the police 10 new bicycles we're going to train them with Jamaicans in using motorcycles to help in the fight against crime and in the budget you go to her initiatives for the police mr. Speaker because we believe that the only way we can combat crime is if we have a well functioning a well trained and a motivated police force mr. Speaker what does he want me to see you want me to interfere in the operation of the police force and we said that our job is to give resources to the police our job is to give not to interfere in who is a corporate who is a sergeant not like what he did mr. Speaker we took the revolution we step and we have confidence in the career police officer a woman and we made a commission on the police because we had confidence in the women of this country and we had confidence that within the police high command there were men and women who were capable of doing the job if they were allowed to do the job properly mr. Speaker so that's the difference between us and them that's the difference the difference between us and them is we do not call police officers and tell them how to do their job that's the difference between us and them mr. Speaker so when he comes and talks about crime no one here no one in his horrible house and I hope he's here also doesn't like the crime situation in the country but and again people are still studying whether the COVID virus the COVID the impact of COVID because you hear about mass murders all over the world crime in England has increased in a way never before and it's not me we're not the ones who did it listen to the news in the united states every other day there's a mass killing every other day so there seems to be something happening with the whole as far as crime is concerned should not come and blame us for for for for crime and try to mix independence and crime independence the time where the whole country should be united the whole country but here is this news the worst independence ever that is that's his independence message the worst independent that's it that's his independence measure mr. Speaker you know why because he has not understood that the people of solution have rejected him and have rejected his policies and refuses to understand that and unless he understand that because he remained desperate frustrated and knowing angry and he continued to be reformed the people of solution i thank you mr. Speaker members the question is that be it resolved that parliament authorizes the minister for finance to borrow from the caribbean development bank the sum of us five point two two million dollars to finance the building capacity and resilience in the health sector to respond to the coronavirus 2019 project be it for the resolve 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 on such later date as the bank may specify in writing see interest is payable at a variable rate of five point one six per annum percent per annum on the amount of the principal disbursed and outstanding from time to time and 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 of that opinion say i as many as of a country opinion say no i think the eyes have it the eyes have it bills prime minister constitution of st lucha amendment mr speaker oh okay it's okay now members prime minister just proceed with your second reading this is a second yeah thank you mr speaker this is a historic day in the history of the people of st lucha mr speaker mr speaker it is historic because we as the people are showing that we have confidence in ourselves that we have confidence in our jurisprudence and we have confidence in the people of the region mr speaker i'm mr speaker i'm proud and happy to be working with the men and women the cabinet the parliament mr speaker and i want to thank the members of your session committee for the work they've done so far and i'm sure that this work is going to continue mr speaker those i want to pay special mention to the former prime minister the honorable dr kenny antony who began this journey into what is going to happen today mr speaker this journey into manhood this journey into confidence and this journey into causing ourselves to be masters of our own destiny mr speaker i want to i want to thank dr antony for starting this process mr speaker mr speaker the bill for consideration is a constitution of st lucha amendment bill this is because the purpose of the bill is to amend the constitution of st lucha cap 1.0 and the act to modify provisions that allow for appeals to a majesty in council and so and so provide for appeals to the caribbean court of justice clause on the bill contains a short title of the bill and clause two of the bill provides for the interpretation of the bill section 16 for of the act enforcement to protect these provisions is amended in clause three of the bill so that where a question is referred to the high court in pursuant of subsection three of that section the high court shall give his decision on the question and the court in which the question arose shall dispose of the case in accordance in the decision or if the decision is the subject of an appeal to the court of appeal or the caribbean or to the caribbean court of justice rather than her majesty in council in accordance with the decision the court of appeal or the caribbean court of justice rather than to her majesty in council by virtue of clause four of the bill section 81 of the act interpretation and savings is amended to remove the references to her majesty in council and to substitute the caribbean court of justice in the definition of the word court in clause five of the bill section 41 7 of the act alteration of the constitution and supreme court order is amended in paragraph e by changing section 107 to section 108 and referring to the caribbean court of justice rather than her majesty in council this means that however random will not be required to alter the provisions relating to appeals to the caribbean court of justice clause six of the bill amend section 73 five of the act control of public prosecutions so that for the purpose of that section and appeal from a judgment in criminal proceedings before a court or a case stated or question of law reserve for the purpose of these proceedings to another court including the caribbean court of justice rather than a majesty in council is deemed to be part of the proceedings on the clause seven of the bill section 106 of the act reference of constitutional questions to high court is amended so that where a question is referred to the high court in pursuance of the section the high court will give his decision on the question and the court in which the question arose will dispose of the case in accordance in the decision or if the decision is subject to an appeal to the court of appeal or caribbean court of justice rather than a majesty in council in accordance in the decision of the court of appeal or as the case may be the caribbean court of justice rather than her majesty in council section 108 of the act appeals to a majesty in council is substituted in clause eight of the bill to make an appeal from a decision of the court of appeal possible to the caribbean court of justice rather than her majesty in council a new section 108 of the act abolition of appeals to a majesty in council is instituted on the clause nine of the bill to abolish appeals to a majesty in council clause 10 of the bill amend section 1241 of the act interpretation to include definitions for the words caribbean court of justice and agreement and to include in definition of court the caribbean court of justice Mr. Speaker these amendments the constitution of celusia would mean that all appeals to any matter taken up in the law court in celusia the final appeal will be to the caribbean court of justice Mr. Speaker instead of the private council this is a sum total of what we are doing today Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker as I said earlier the journey this journey towards the point we are here today was continued in 2014 when the matter of a referendum was cleared by the court of appeal Mr. Speaker saying that there was no referendum needed if celusia had to move from the private council to the court of appeal that was cleared by the supreme court of the eastern caribbean supreme court Mr. Speaker it was cleared the court of appeal that was clear so that means that there was concurrence that that we did not need a referendum to make the transition from the private from the private council to the caribbean court of justice Mr. Speaker that was clear from 2014 there is no legal basis for a referendum and that was clear and it's very important Mr. Speaker that we repeat that we repeated Mr. Speaker however the need for a referendum was cleared by the eastern caribbean court of appeal so Mr. Speaker the labor party in its manifesto in the last general election of 2021 on page 28 of the manifesto Mr. Speaker and I quote here is what the manifesto said it said we will commence the process for the ascension to the caribbean court of justice as celusia's final appellant court as the replacement to the private council that was clearly stated in the manifesto of the celusia labor party in the 2021 general election Mr. Speaker and on the 26th of july 2021 the people voted for the labor party we were resounding victory of 14 seats to two Mr. Speaker and we were joined by two other members giving us a majority of 15 seats to two that was clear that was clear Mr. Speaker in the manifesto Mr. Speaker on the 29th of march 2022 Mr. Speaker the governor general in his front speech announced that the government intended to terminate his relationship with the private council he said it in clear announced and certain terms Mr. Speaker on the 29th of march in his budget address Mr. Speaker in his throne speech it was clear and the front speech is normally the policy of the government Mr. Speaker in my budget address on the 26th of april 2022 i stated clearly on page 50 i announced that a committee chaired by an ex-judge had been tasked to assist in the process of ascension to the caribbean court of justice through public education etc that is stated clearly in my budget address on the 26th of april 2022 Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker continuing the process on the 30th of march 2022 a letter was written to the foreign secretary requesting agreement to amend the constitution to terminate jurisdiction of the private council that letter was written to the foreign secretary the british foreign secretary mr. Speaker to to inform her and to ask permission if you want to see to um to let us leave the private council she was the foreign secretary responded mr. Speaker on the 10th of august 2022 and for the purposes of the record mr. Speaker and for certainty and clarity i will read the letter that came from the foreign and court for development office mr. Speaker the letter is dear prime minister thank you for your letter of 30th march addressed to the foreign secretary requesting agreement to amend specified sections of the constitution of senucia that will have the effect of terminating the jurisdiction of the judicial committee of the private council jcpc in relation to appeals from any court having jurisdiction in senucia and to exceed to the jurisdiction of the caribbean court of justice i apologize for the delayed response the foreign secretary has asked me to reply the british government has always taken the view that it is a matter for the government and people of the country concerned in the case of senucia to decide whether or not to avail themselves of the jurisdiction of the jcpc i can therefore confirm that this is a matter for you to progress via legal and political channels and you should write to me again for ministerial sign-off when the preparatory work has been completed you're sincerely vicky ford minister for africa latin america and the caribbean this is the letter that came from the foreign and court of environment office mr speaker to respond into my letter on the 40th of march informing them that we intended to cease our association with the private council mr speaker mr speaker a draft bill was laid before this honorable house on the 11th of october 2022 for the first reading mr speaker of of that amendment to the constitution mr speaker mr speaker that is keeping in the provision of the constitution section 41 6a of the constitution that stipulates that there must be a delay of 90 days before the first and second reading of any bill that will amend the constitution of senucia mr speaker there must be a delay there must be a time span of 90 days between the first reading and the second and subsequent readings and if you check mr speaker you'll see in excess of 90 days between the length of october and today mr speaker so mr speaker it is clear that all the constitutional requirements have been met for us to amend the constitution mr speaker all the constitutional requirements all what is required by the constitution no need for a referendum putting the bill for the first reading and 90 days between the first reading and the subsequent second and fourth readings that has been done and that is clear mr speaker mr speaker let's speak let us talk a little bit about the structure of the caribbean court of justice mr speaker mr speaker it has two distinct jurisdictions one of them is interpreted and applying the revised treaty of chagrammas which determines how the csm works and sen lusia and other caracom states of caracom have already acceded to the jurisdiction of the court in the csm so sen lusia is already a part of the caribbean court of justice as it relates to interpretation of the revised treaty of chagrammas sen lusia is already part of that set of mr speaker the original jurisdiction of the caribbean court of justice mr speaker mr speaker the caribbean court of justice as a resplacement to the privy council is already incorporated into the laws of sen lusia but they will allow the lawyers to expand more on on that notion mr speaker mr speaker you hear the complaints or the accusations that the court would not be independent mr speaker has listened to how the caribbean court of justice is financed mr speaker is financed from the proceeds of a trust fund of i think a hundred million u.s dollars to which sen lusia has already invested 2.1 million dollars mr speaker that means mr speaker that no government can no government can say i am not paying today because you did not rule in my in my favor mr speaker that hundred million dollars has been put in a trust fund and that's trust fund is managed by trustees and they say how to invest the money how to invest the funds so you can get a return so the court can meet its obligations to pay sorry the search means so no prime minister can say he's withdrawing he is withdrawing his contribution for the court because they are not mr speaker so that means there is no political pressure as far as funding of the court is concerned mr speaker the other point of contention mr speaker that they want to bring is they say that the judges will not be independent and because judges are chosen by politicians mr speaker again very wrong mr speaker and please allow me to tell you how the judges are selected in the court mr speaker the judges are selected by regional judicial and legal services commission that is independent from political control or influence the president of the court is the chairman and mr speaker let me read for you the composition of the regional judicial and legal services commission on page four mr speaker of the agreement that sets up that sets up the kaiman come just in the figure it is clear who is in the regional judicial and legal services commission and let me quote mr speaker from that agreement mr speaker the regional and judicial service commission is made up of the following persons the president who shall be chairman of the commission two persons nominated jointly by the organization of the commonwealth caribbean bar association and the organization of eastern caribbean states the bar association mr speaker it is not my it is not my habit of calling names in this honorable house i was refrain from calling names of private citizens in honorable house mr speaker but when mr speaker in a serious matter like that you have people's names are bandied around for political purposes mr speaker it is unfair and i'll ask you live to mention the name mr speaker the name of thaddeus anton has been bandied around even to imply that thaddeus anton is an operative of the solution labor party and he'll be able to influence the appointment of judges mr speaker thaddeus anton was not appointed by the labor party thaddeus anton is there because of his position on the organization of eastern caribbean states bar association by his office mr speaker the labor party has absolutely no say in appointing anybody in that in that situation mr speaker again i don't want to mention names but it's very important that i mention names to me because mr speaker people just say these things they point on social media they damage people's reputation they call people all kinds of names mr speaker mr speaker let me tell you the names of st lucians who have served on this commission mr speaker the right honorable deceased sir venison floacer was here pointing at a point me appointment of of the labor party mr ebbott lannell was here a point of the labor party mr everista jamari mr tyron chung and surprise surprise mr frank maz i guess he was a point he was appointed labor party too these mr speaker these are the people who have solutions have been on the original judicial and services commission mr speaker but they continue the lies and they continue the deformation of people's characters mr speaker the foot the chairman of the judicial service commission of a contracted party selected in rotation in english alphabetical order for a period of three years you see how much caution precaution is taken mr speaker let me tell you let me read for you again one chairman of the judicial services commission over contracting party selected in rotation in the english alphabetical order for a period of three years d the chairman of a public service commission of a contracting party selected in rotation in the reverse english alphabetical order for a period of three years alphabetical order for a period of three years in reverse the other one was in rotation not in reverse two persons from civil society two persons from civil society nominated jointly by the secretary general of the committee and the director general of the ocs for a period of three years following consultations with regional non-governmental associations NGOs mr speaker the other members are two distinguished jurists nominated jointly by the dean of the faculty of law of the university of the west indians the deans of the faculties of law of any other contracting parties and the chairman of the council of legal education i mean the speaker allowed me to break mr speaker to publicly put on record my congratulations to professor rosemary anton who is now the principal of the center guston campus mr speaker and i know a member inside the head knows her very well to the other members mr speaker of the judicial and legal commission mr speaker two persons nominated jointly by the bar or law associations of the contracting party mr speaker that these are the people who choose the judges these are the people mr speaker these are the ones who who who choose the judges mr speaker and they bring it far back to the labor party mr speaker further the judges of the court other than the president shall be appointed or removed by a majority vote of all the members of the commission a majority vote of all the members of the commission mr speaker and that is separated in page three of the agreement mr speaker mr speaker the president is appointed or removed by the qualified majority mr speaker the president shall shall be appointed or removed by the qualified majority of three quarters of the contracting parties on the recommendation of a commission of inquiry or tribunal three quarter the president shall be appointed or removed by the qualified majority of three quarter of the contracting parties the judges of the courts other than the president shall be appointed or removed by a majority vote of all the members of the commission mr speaker this is how judges are chosen and this is how judges are dismissed mr speaker further on page eight mr speaker listen to how judges can be removed also a judge may be removed from office only by only for inability to perform the functions of his office whether arising from illness or any other cause of misbehavior and shall not be so removed except in accordance with the provisions of this article mr speaker subject to article four paragraph five the president shall be removed from office by the heads of government on the recommendation of the commission if the question of removal the president has to be referred to by the heads of government to a tribunal and the tribunal has advised the commission that the president ought to move from office for inability to be into for inability or misbehavior mr speaker in paragraph four a tribunal force that is the system it is people if at least three heads of government in the case of the president jointly represent to the other heads of government or if the commission decides in the case of the any other judge that the question removed the president or the judge of office ought to be investigated then the heads of government or the commission shall appoint a tribunal which shall consist of a chairman or not less than two other members selected by the heads of government or the commission as the case may be after such consultations as may be considered expedient from among persons who hold or have held office as a judge of a court of unlimited jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters in some part of the common witness speaker or in the state exercising civil law jurisprudence common to contracting parties or a court having jurisdiction it appears from any such courts and the tribunal shall inquire into the matter and advise the heads of government or the commission as the case may be whether or not the president or judge ought to be removed from office these are the conditions mr speaker in an agreement and that agreement was signed mr speaker from it was signed mr mr speaker by the heads of government less taboo 14 february 2001 oh and after february 2001 sad musa february 2001 kief mitchell february 2021 clement rowey for the government of gaena february 2021 pacifist j palison for the government of jamaica 14 february 2001 densel dogus for the government of seven kids 14 february 2021 kennedy anthony for the government of san lusia 14 february 21 and ralph gonzalez for the government of san venzen 15 february 2020 and the government of the republic of venice of surinam 14 february 2001 and basio pandy for the government of shenan tobago 14 february 2021 mr speaker that is the agreement mr speaker that established the caribbean court of justice mr speaker mr speaker so what we do today mr speaker what we do today mr speaker is since san lusia already is involved in the caribbean court of justice as far as matters that do not relate to criminality etc matters according to the revised treaty of chagoramas mr speaker we are taking the next logical step mr speaker the next logical step which is making the caribbean court of justice the final appellant court for all matters that relate to san lusia mr speaker mr speaker the ccj will make justice accessible to the people of san lusia for the last 16 years mr speaker there's only have only been 17 cases that have gone to the preview council for the last 16 years only 17 cases from san lusia has gone to the preview council an average of one case per year and you're talking about justice being accessible you know why mr speaker because the ordinary sedution cannot afford to go to the preview council mr speaker it's inconvenient mr speaker and it's costly and the caribbean court of justice mr speaker what it has made justice more accessible to the regularly ordinary person in the country including criminals including people who have been charged have been convicted for criminal offenses it makes justice justice accessible to them so you can get a free and fair trial at all levels mr speaker of this at all levels mr speaker of the justice system mr speaker so mr speaker i think today the choice that we are making mr speaker is whether we think that we are capable of making quality independent judicial decisions mr speaker mr speaker whether we have the intellectual and moral capability to produce woody judges in a country that has produced two Nobel laureates mr speaker whether we can produce legal luminaries at the level of national courts and the OECS court of appeal but not at the highest level mr speaker i refuse to accept that mr speaker i refuse to accept that that we cannot have a group of men and women seven men and women who after this rigorous procedure cannot deliver justice fairly mr speaker to the people of St musher and talking about the judges mr speaker you must note that the judges do not have to come from the region they can come from anywhere in the world right now there's somebody from the neverlands who is a member of the criminal court of justice mr speaker so we can take we can get talent once the talent meets the requirements of the agreement mr speaker and the the agreement says in making appointments to the office of the judge regard shall be heard to the following criteria high moral character intellectual and analytical ability sound judgment integrity and understanding of people and society understanding of people and society mr speaker so allen louis was a federal supreme court judge doing the rest in this federation sardani alexander could have been the chief justice of nigeria mr speaker was the citizens of nigeria sardani sardani exam these are solutions mr speaker mr speaker there are other significant members of the judiciary who have become judges sardani's byron's evincent frossa men of impeccable legal ability who have done the job in that case one of them being the president of the caribbean court of justice mr speaker so mr speaker i think it is a shame that as a people we should we should be so afraid of ourselves as a people we should have so much such lack of confidence in our ability as a nation to be skeptical or even to oppose the caribbean court of justice has been the final court of opinion mr speaker when all the limitations when all effort has been taken to ensure that the court is independent that the court is free of political influences and that the judges in the court are men of high judicial knowledge and experience mr speaker mr speaker on 14 of february when prime minister kenyantinov sen lusia signed the agreement establishing the ccj sen lusia subsequently ratified this agreement sen lusia as a contracting party agreed that decisions of the scot of appeal will lie to the ccj ccj a session to the appellant position of ccj will ensure that sen lusia falls into full compliance with the solemn international obligation completing the groundwork carefully laid by dr hanty sen lusia has contributed his fair share to the ccj trust fund whose purpose is to provide the resources necessary to finance the capital and operating budget of the courts and the commission for a long time sen lusia has therefore paid millions of dollars for an asset which it is not making use of mr speaker the jurisprudence of the ccj is regarded regional internationally with the utmost respect decisions of the ccj are cited with approval in other courts regional and internationally including including judicial committee of the previous council the legal profession in garner barbarians believes in domica are fully satisfied with the juris jurisprudence and services offered by the ccj mr speaker the argument is used sometimes self-serving arguments that only four countries are members of the ccj as far as a final appellant court is bigger but mr speaker the argument is flawed because the constitutions of this country these countries are basically different and sen lusia tested tested it when we sought an opinion from the court as to whether solution needs a referendum to go into the ccj mr speaker a referendum to go to the ccj will most likely not yield the results of what it is there for which is to go into ccj because politicians will intervene politicians will interfere politicians will cloud the will cloud the judgment and we may get a situation where it does not truly reflect the pros and cons mr speaker of going to the ccj mr speaker and there is no legal basis for a referendum mr speaker mr speaker it is more expensive very expensive to pursue an appeal to the to the privy council mr speaker then it is to appeal to the crime and court of justice indeed mr speaker pursuing an appeal to the privy council is cost prohibitive that is why there's only been an average of one appeal per year for the last for the last 16 years mr speaker ascension to the ccj makes it possible for more people to appeal to the highest court mr speaker the ccj's case filing and case management is second to none long before the pandemic the ccj model electronic filing and electronic case management well ahead over the court in the region mr speaker mr speaker unlike the OECS state of gillian antique and barbados i've said so before so in lusia does not need a referendum to accede to the ccj and this has been confirmed i said several times before but isn't caribbean called for doing the speaker mr speaker nor it is ideal that the step be taken by popular popular referendum mr speaker mr speaker none of the momentum steps in solution history was referred to a referendum mr speaker there was no referendum to impose slavery on us we never went to a referendum to say whether we should be slaves or to have universal added suffrage mr speaker or to join the west indies federation or to become an associated state or to become independent mr speaker we as a government having met all the requirements having stated to the people that that is our intention having formed a committee of ascension to the cgj and that committee will continue his work mr speaker we have and having the necessary majority in parliament we have a legal we have a constitutional and we have a moral right to take zennusha into the caribbean court of justice mr speaker mr speaker i wish to say mr speaker that going to the ccj is the right thing to do mr speaker justice cannot be the preview of a few mr speaker all solutions all citizens have a right to justice at the highest level mr speaker mr speaker i in closing mr speaker i really wish to say that it's a shame mr speaker that in 2023 we can have people who still believe that colonialism had a conscience who still believe mr speaker that the people of this region cannot determine their own destiny that we cannot find a group nine seven or nine men and women of a high intellectual and judicial value and respect who cannot take decisions after the system from the majesties court to the high court to the film court they cannot take decisions based on what happened down there mr speaker it's a shame mrs speaker and i'm very happy that the young people of zennusha are listening are listening to those who do not want to give them a chance who do not want to allow them to reach the highest levels of intellectual of scientific of political levels in this country who believe that they are not capable who believe that we have to only go to our colonial masters who believe that what exists outside in canada is better than what exists in zennusha who are ashamed to say that they are products of zennusha but instead they are products of canada mr speaker i'm happy that the young people of zennusha are listening mr speaker and this giant step as i said before this giant step started by kenny anthony and continuing with us mr speaker that is how we are we are we are river we flow we are stream mr speaker it starts one end and ends somewhere else mr speaker and today this government this labor party government is enforcing and showing its confidence after following all the constitutional and consultative requirements we are proud to see that we're going to ask this house to finally remove us from the shackles of colonialism and song them for the time but we consider them we thank you but our time has come to go we love you but we can't stay with you any longer thank you mr speaker remember for view for south you can bring it here much obliged to you mr speaker thank you very much mr speaker this is a historic debate historic for the people of zennusha for the parliament of zennusha the people of our caribbean civilization and for me personally and i asked mr speaker that you allow me some leeway as i share the moments of personal significance of the occurrence today i'm aware mr speaker that we are graced with the presence of students today and i hope that they will have the patience to listen to this debate and it's possibly its entirety because we are all going to be speaking to history today and it's going to be so important that history resonates not just in what we say but also what we do what we think what we believe what we practice but let me return mr speaker to the moment of personal significance of which i mentioned a few moments ago and this is not really to blow any personal trumpet but i am sometimes mystified by what we seem to have calmly forgotten our history our past what we have achieved what we have not achieved what we have done what we have not done all seem to disappear into the night of history and mindful of the fact mr speaker that this is the second amendment to the constitution of st lucia since independence 44 years ago we have had this constitution now for for 44 years and this is the second amendment as fate will have it i featured in the very first amendment to this constitution an amendment to section 25 subsection a to reduce the age of appointment to the senate from 30 years to 21 years and how did this happen mr speaker when they said lucia leba party won the general elections of 1979 mr speaker and after the general elections i was approached by the then-in-common prime minister alan luisi at my house at saffi near pi preparing to return to the university to complete a master's degree so alan said to me we had a rough night last night i said how come well we had a rough night because you see there was an issue about who should become prime minister and i'm saying this publicly for the first time i said really why would that happen they said well you know your good friend george oddland and peter josey they raised the issue of who should be prime minister after the general election and after much argument and debate i was compelled to come to an agreement and essentially the agreement was that i'd be prime minister for six months thereafter i will hand over the post to the to the deceased george oddland that's the story that's the real what actually happened there was no pre-election agreement it happened that night and then he said to me but it was a happier note that all of us agreed that you should become the minister of education of st lucia and you will do so by appointment of the senate by then i had some familiarity with the constitution and said to him listen i can't be a senator i'm sorry i can't take up the post because the constitution says that to be a senator to be appointed to the senate you have to be 30 and i am only at the time 28 so i couldn't be a senator says well don't worry we want to check the constitution out but believe we believe that we can amend it back to the majority and reduce the age from 30 to 21 and then told him i'll give it some consideration and let him know and accepted on the ground that i will be made a special advisor in the ministry of education a de facto minister of education to supervise the ministry of education until such time that the amendment was made but as faith would have it that amendment became a victim of the warfare between odlam and alan louisie and i'm going to share with this house something else you don't know but as history calls me i answer and i allow you to share this information because it would also help you to understand why i have been the individual that i have been as leader of the party that all of you are members of and at one time a government in 1980 we had a common interest examination in siloosh and it fell to me as de facto minister at the time to allocate places in secondary schools a minister whom i shall not name came to me and said look my son did not get the required pass mark to go to st. mary's college but um you would fix a business for me and make sure that he's accepted and he enters at mary's college i looked at him and said no i'm not doing that i cannot do that because we have just introduced a new system of allocation of students to secondary schools based on the fairness of the common entrance examination and it had to start with us we needed to make a clear statement to the public that as ministers we would follow the rules and disavow the perception that we're all in office for ourselves and for our benefit the minister looked at me and said to me well if you're not going to allow my son to go to st. mary's college then when it comes to amending this this constitution you will see my position or hear my position loud and clear obviously the majority then was a 12-5 environment so that if that minister had withdrawn his support then the number would have been reduced to 11 and the possibility less than 11 and the amendment would not have carried i stood my ground the prime minister came to me and said but that's a minor matter why don't you i said sir alla and you're a former just judge you need to support me i can't do this i'm not doing it you're going to have the post and i'll go about my business said to me there's no need for that no need for that as fate again would have it we had this devastating hurricane this matter was deferred and it dragged and dragged i resigned the first time and then eventually they decided to go through with the amendment to the constitution but by then i was 30 and there was no need for the amendment to be done for my benefit in reality the amendment was done for the incoming generation that is the story behind why you had that first amendment to the constitution and the age was reduced to 21 of course if i had my way that age would have been reduced to 18 years so that was the first episode then in this instance before us today with the caribbean call of justice you will note that the member for castries is in his presentation refer to the fact that the agreement was signed in 2001 that tells you something because between 1996 and 1997 i served as general counsel at the caricom secretariat and had the responsibility to begin the process of preparing the draft for the agreement that was signed in fact that draft agreement was prepared by duke pollard who subsequently became a judge of the caribbean call of justice but it was my responsibility i saw to that first draft to that initial draft of what we eventually signed the way has been part of the thinking part of the fiber what makes the caribbean call of justice and today you are asking me to come to this house i want to and suggest that i should oppose the accession to the caribbean call of justice on the grounds that you need a referendum when i was one of those who was an author and part and parcel of that agreement that created that court but you have the temerity to come to me with that kind of message and of course when i had the honor to be the prime minister of this country in 1987 caricom assigned the responsibility for justice and governance to me me so i then had the responsibility to secure agreement to establish a caribbean call of justice to persuade my colleagues to persuade the member states of caricom to establish the caribbean call of justice and bring it to life that's another story that's another episode i don't even know if people understand why the caribbean call of justice was ever established in trinidad and tobago when trinidad and tobago is not a signatory to the appellate jurisdiction of the court very simple the then prime minister of trinidad and tobago suggested that suggested to his colleagues with my support that we should allow trinidad and tobago to establish a court in trinidad and tobago if only it would help to persuade those persons in trinidad who oppose the caribbean call of justice that trinidad and tobago would have a valid stake in that court by the fact that the the presence of the court was in trinidad and tobago that's the story why it's there in trinidad and tobago and we bought the we bought the argument so that's the story of of that court as you may have heard the caribbean call of justice was formally inaugurated in port of spain on april 16th 2005 and there i had the opportunity to deliver an address as the prime minister with responsibility for governance of justice which i did under theme quote leap of enlightenment but here in st lucer we lost the momentum to establish the court we lost the general election in 2006 and following our return in 2011 we resumed the efforts to establish the court at the time and as you know today we needed a two-thirds majority to amend the constitution but we had an 11 seat majority it was 11 seats to six which if you translated it into two-thirds would have been roughly 11.33 and if you notice the member of a calisthenics north is looking at me very closely because he's wondering when am i going to get to him yes i'm going to get to him now for safety sake we determined that it was not wise to proceed with on the basis of an 11-6 majority but to go to majority of 12-5 because given that the two-thirds was 11.33 we did not want that to be an issue to be litigated in the courts of what really constituted a minor thing like a two-thirds majority so we played it safe and we wanted to put the issue beyond doubt i then engaged the member for castries north and at the time he was the leader of the opposition we had private discussions on the matter i reminded him of the position of the founder of the united workers party says john compton and former member of this house who in his public pronouncements had repeatedly said that he supported the caribbean court of justice but then unfortunately a new leader was elected for the united workers party and the honorable member was exiled to the back benches he was exiled to the back benches and the new leader of the united workers party made the position absolutely clear and of course that new leader was the member for mikus south based with that issue we then had to contend with the other issue as to whether there was any veracity in the common view that we needed a referendum and at that stage we decided that a better approach would be to ask the court of appeal for an advisory opinion on whether sit lucha needed a referendum the court confirmed there was no requirement for a referendum and i will certainly want to go through that issue in a few moments armed with the advisory opinion of the court we wrote to the british government whose agreement was required as explained to you by the prime minister and a member for castries east an amending bill was drafted did its first reading in parliament but at last we did not complete the process as a general election of 2016 in the vene now the honor of completing this process of accession belongs to the member for castries east who achieved this remarkable majority at the general election of 2021 and it is this remarkable majority that has given us the key to unlock that door to ensure that we can complete that parliamentary process so today mr speaker do not speak to the assembled parliamentarians i know they can listen if they wish to but i'm not going to speak to them i am also i also did not intend to speak to the opposition but i hope even if they were there they might have cast their air and maybe picked up one or two things that they could have understood but i would not have been speaking to them because i know what the position is rather mr speaker i want to speak to the people of st lusia i want to ask them to give me a listening air i want to ask them to give me a moment of constitutional constitutional and possibly ideological indulgence a little bit i'm getting on in age i'm entitled to it mr speaker i asked them to allow me to persuade them that our accession to the caribbean court of justice is indeed a leap of enlightenment just give me a few moments to explain why i believe it is so important that we take that step and why i support the initiative to do so in that effort i want to do a couple things i want to share a little bit of the history of the caribbean court of justice a little bit of the past i want in different terms than that of the member for castries east to answer the question do we need a referendum is the opposition correct or simply mischievous an opportunistic that it should call for a referendum and then i want to return to a theme again addressed by the member for castries east the issue of expanding access to justice they want also to touch on the issue of whether the caribbean court of justice is truly an independent court again touching on his point but in my own style perhaps addressing it in a different way and i also want to address this issue of reforms to the judiciary and to handle or touch the argument that is posited that you should fix up the whole judiciary before you exceed to the jurisdiction of the caribbean court of justice i want to touch on that because those who make that proposal i want to ask them why is it from our colonial days to the days of our independence and now 44 years after the pretty council has never been able to bring any reform to the judicial system of the caribbean why what's the issue run this speaker to some extent i have to accept that this debate has been displaced and i want you to forgive me and listen to me carefully why i say this those of us who have engaged in this debate over the years mr speaker often speak about accession in philosophical and ideological terms we say for example that accession will complete our circle of independence it will complete the repatriation of our constitution meaning that this constitution will come back to us it'll be part of our grand norm we created it is ours those who see that way and then of course there are those who say that if we do this it will affirm and express our identity as a people and civilization and it is part of that unfolding process i've come to accept mr speaker that while these principles are sacred to some of us sacrosanct to some of us these principles mean little or nothing to the citizens of our region they're not preoccupied with issues of completing the circle of our independence or even though it matters so much it matters to people like me it matters to judicial personnel it matters to academics it it matters who have a sense of what the caribbean civilization should be it matters but rank and file for them it is of little significance our people seem to me to be preoccupied with issue of access to justice to the quality of justice justice that is delivered by judges who are fair independent impartial and close in integrity that's what they seem to be preoccupied with you know solutions are preoccupied with mr speaker they're occupied with what is happening in our magistrates courts and i am not saying anything out of turn when i say mr speaker that's the solutions we're listening to me and listening to the rest of you they're going to they're going to be preoccupied with why our courthouses saying you've what have been closed for months the magistrates courts have been closed for months and you can't be talking about access to justice in these matters if we don't resolve those issues because this is where mr speaker that a lot of the justice that we speak of takes place and we have not grasped the importance and significance of that first rung of the judicial ladder the magistracy these are the things our people are concerned about the quality of justice access to accessing justice whether our justice is independent whether they they they impartial whether they deliver quality they're not interested in the philosophical and philosophical and ideological issues sad to but we are because it means my generation it means a lot you see we came out we came out of a certain kind of social matrix we were the children of the black power movement of black nationalism that's where we came from we knew what the value of an afro was and what state made it made and what it meant we knew all those things and for us it is a completion of that journey of self-identity so for us it's a big issue but unfortunately for the majority of people they don't see that way there's this more immediate there's this more immediate and I believe that part of the problem with the CCJ has been that the debate has been misplaced we did not explain enough to the people of our region to the people of St Lucia how this court by its establishment will change the issue of access to justice the quality of justice and will make a difference in their lives that it is not just a question of having judges but it is also a question of having judges who understand our region who understand the culture of the region who understand the people of the region who understand what it means when somebody takes a house builds a house on government lands because they have nowhere else to turn and the court says well you did so but let us look at what you did against the rights that you may have had and of course the rights of the owner of the land crown but who understand why this is happening I'm not going to quote Bible and verse the famous cases to you it's not a day for that and by the way Mr. Speaker let me warn you doing bottle look at that clock because you see today I probably will likely speak more than an hour I believe I've earned it Mr. Speaker all right now so Mr. Speaker we focused on the lofty ideas regarding the establishment of the court but not the things people are concerned with and in this debate this is where we have to go to share with them those concerns having said this I want to very quickly Mr. Speaker touch a little bit of the history of the court the first day I want the people of St. Lucia to know and to understand is look the idea of a Caribbean court to replace the Caribbean call of to replace the privilege council is nothing new in fact it has been in existence for over 122 years it was an idea whose seed was planted a hundred and twenty two years and possibly more there's nothing new this was not something that Caribbean governments rushed into because it was fashionable we knew from judicial practice that we had to take that leap of faith at some point so when you go back into a historical times ironically the idea first emerged in Jamaica when the Gleaner newspaper mentioned in 1901 that thinking men believe that the judicial committee has served its turn and is now out of joint with the condition of the times 1901 in 1901 and do you know that the language that the Gleaner newspaper used you would think that it is the language that would be said today because it resonates they said thinking men believe that the judicial committee has served its turn and is now out of joint with the condition of the times and this is really what you're saying the privilege council is out of joint with the conditions of the times we have grown up we are mature people we are confident civilization we have learned to manage our affairs we have learned to make our mistakes and correct our mistakes what more do you want of a civilization then mr. speaker we might want to say that sometime in 1970 the efforts to establish such a court assume new momentum but the most significant development occurred in 1972 when the organization of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Association's Akbar established a committee to examine the issue of creating a Caribbean call of appeal to replace the privilege council and then of course that report was prepared by the esteemed jurist the first principal of the Norman Manly Law School Aubrey Fraser advocating for the replacement of the judicial council with an indigenous regional court the next important step was in fact in 1989 when the idea became more firmly rooted coming out of the Grand Anz declaration of 1989 which established what became known as a ramfile commission and then when that commission reported in 1992 they said in their famous report time for action quote the case for a caracombe supreme court with both a general appellate jurisdiction and an original one is now overwhelming indeed it is fundamental to the process of integration and that's apart from history is the second most powerful reason that if we wanted to support Caribbean integration then we had to establish a regional court to underpin the existence of integration and as you can see the benefits have already begun to flow from then it was a matter of giving the direction of which I spoke 1992 reports to could stand to be circulated to be shared 1996-97 or my own arrival at the caracombe secretariat and the finalization of the preliminary draft of this agreement this international agreement this treaty to establish a court and that is a synopsis there's so much more now you will understand therefore why I say to you today that for me this has a lot of personal significance I'm good about you Mr. Speaker that most of them are on this table they're not aware of the history that I speak they may have sat around the table and made decisions but they're not aware of that history they're not even aware how intimately I was involved in that process well don't forget to forget the people in Russia and so if I speak in emotive terms if I speak with renewed vigor and spirit it is only because as I prepare to signal my departure at the appropriate time I am dealing with an issue that resonates with me an issue of immense personal significance I don't know Mr. Speaker and the member of a cast disease said it I don't know why we doubt ourselves I don't know why we doubt our abilities our intellect our competence and brilliant I don't know why we want to teach the children who are here the students who are here today that we are not some of the brightest people around in this world I don't know why in the region we have this tension this capacity to devalue ourselves you can't tell me anybody from Oxford is better than me I'm as good as anyone we have to stop this nonsense we have to stop this nonsense and it is not a statement of my bigger tree that I'm as good I'm only pointing out that we have to stop it and we need to understand that we are special people in our region we are gifts we have gifts we must celebrate what we have I'm going to come to that in a few minutes you know recently I had the unfortunate moment to read that Peter Mencher was dead which wasn't true it was actually fake news real fake news and Peter Mencher quickly came out and said that's not so but you know forget for a moment our Derek Walcott and Sir Arthur Lewis said you heard the brilliant lecture delivered by the provost chancellor of the university of the West Indies this is not everything he said I agree with by the way I have my differences with what he says but and his interpretation of certain things there will always be differences but but he was making the point of that very special place that we we have in the region and we doubt ourselves because we don't appreciate and we don't know what we have created and I'm going to remind because the the prime minister of the member for castries he's touched on it but we need to be reminded ourselves of some of the accomplishments that we have had because you see we we lawyers we don't have a way we celebrate what we do you know we celebrate what we do by the cases we win in court and whether we get a good judgment or bad judgment but sometimes we don't fully appreciate what we had I had to remind a member for castries this when he mentioned Sir Daniel Alexander that he was the first chief justice of an independent Nigeria he was a sedution and you know where he came from he came from that's where he came from that's where he came from when the African countries wanted persons to head their judiciaries they turned lawyers to head the judiciary and to guide them in their post-independence period Caribbean lawyers filled the office of Jesusus of Kenya of Nigeria and of Zimbabwe I spoke of Sir Daniel but of course but the brilliant Telford Georges my dear friend Telford Georges who when he left the court of appeal in Trinidad and Tobago found himself in Africa to be chief justice indeed the leaders of the bar in this region have long been the professionals of choice throughout the Caribbean as of course they continue to be and where senior lawyers have held some of the highest judicial offices in the world we provided a judge to the world's most senior judicial body the International Court of Justice in the Hague a Caribbean national was there a where senior lawyers was chairman of the international tribunal on the Lord the scene Hamburg our region provided judges to the Yugoslav and Rwanda war crimes tribunal our venerable former chief justice and former president of the Caribbean Court of Justice Sir Dennis Byron was head of that tribunal in Rwanda we have had the chairmanship of the inter-american judicial tribunal and now we have the distinction of providing one of the first judges of the international criminal court let me tell you we have a habit when we evaluating Derek Walker we say we have the highest per capita of Nobel Prize winners in our country but let me tell you something you don't know in per capita terms I doubt if any other community in the world had served the world's wide cause of justice more comprehensively and more consistently than the Caribbean I doubt it no civilization has had so much influence on the dispensation of justice in the world than Caribbean jurists and Caribbean lawyers I stand by that I stand by it don't comment tell me about privy guns it was to be final appellate code I was under duress it's under duress the privy council operated under the umbrella of colonialism they were instrument of colonialism they implemented the colonial agenda and I'm going to digress and I'm going to cause a little bit of offense too because make no mistake that that privy council is about implementing the imperial agenda and the ideological agenda of the British government you know make no mistake about that you know you know why hanging is a problem in the Caribbean hanging is an issue in the Caribbean every opportunity that the privy council gets to repudiate a hanging in the Caribbean a sentence of hanging it takes that opportunity and finds some reason to overturn the judgment of a Caribbean called why because the British government has taken an ideological position that hanging will no longer be tolerated and the privy council has been its instrument to implement that philosophy now this is where I disagree with the judges in the Caribbean because they allow themselves to be blinded by something called we lawyers called precedent and apply the precedence created by the privy council but the president the reasoning of the privy council in those cases is nothing more than ideological it is implementing the agenda of europeans and of the British that's what it is that is what it has been all along all along but we refuse to call a spade a spade that's in our nature we recoil and when I stand in this house and I say come call you to call us you I don't care if you like me or not I'm going to call a spade a spade that's the kind of thing that I mean that's calling that's calling a spade a spade so mr. Speaker let us be very clear ourselves there's no need to doubt ourselves mr. Speaker against that background mr. Speaker I now want to come to this referendum question and ask whether we need a referendum do we need a referendum no it sounds good doesn't it member for castries he said it well it sounds good consult the people you go and consult the people head their views you have a referendum so the people you are exceeding to democracy so I want to ask if that is the case why then you have created a constitution that allows you to amend some sections in your constitution by a specified majority whether it's two-thirds or three-quarters but yet in some of those sections you say that you must go to the people of the country and get a secure referendum and not just a referendum but a specified percentage of votes before you can amend this constitution it is clear that our constitution or the framers of our constitution understood that there were some provisions in this constitution that did not need a referendum but there are others because of their importance their significance it had to go to the people to make a final decision that's the nature of the constitution we have the tragedy is that very few provisions in this constitution can be amended by a two-thirds majority as we are doing today the vast majority require significant engagement of the public so this constitution actually ensures that people are part of the lawmaking process when it comes to amending our constitution that's what we have and by the way for those of you who are anglophiles by the way that's not what a British constitution says the British constitution hardly know about the thing called referendum you know it's not enshrined nothing is enshrined in the British constitution although you might want to argue that Bill of Rights the UK Bill of Rights is somewhat entrenched they don't have a written they don't have a written constitution you know but you know what they put us through all of this because they felt that we gotta handle ourselves we couldn't trust ourselves that's a bottom line you know and you're so faithful to the untruth that the British decrease us that you yourself believe in it too now you want to trust yourself you better go and trust the Englishman that's where we are that's the reality that we have that's the reality that that that we have but mr. Speaker free government in the Caribbean that has had a referendum in obedience to their constitution has run into trouble oh no one Antigua got into trouble Greta got into trouble Saint Vincent got into trouble and the Bahamas got into trouble let me tell you how perverse it was in the Bahamas do you know mr. Speaker that in the Bahamas the Bahamian man can marry an outsider and that outsider is entitled to citizenship under the Bahamian constitution the Bahamian woman on the other hand if she marries a man from outside now you understand why the Bahamian women don't like to marry people from the rest of the region if she marries a man from outside that man is not entitled to citizenship you understand what I'm saying now a very patriotic bright sharp prime minister dear friend of mine decided that couldn't be right and since we were they were in the era of clamoring for the rights of women he would go to the electorate he'll propose an amendment to the Bahamian constitution and ask the Bahamian people to vote in a referendum as prescribed by the constitution to make it to equalize the treatment of women in the Bahamian constitution to give women the same rights that men in the Bahamas have you know what happened when you went to the constitution he lost the he lost it you would have imagined that the people of the Bahamas so enlightened that in this day and age they get an opportunity to amend the constitution to treat women equally like men and they turn it on and you must have had women in the Bahamas who also turned it on and you know why because they became the victim of the ignorance of the politics that we have because instead of voting on the virtues and benefits of the referendum what they went to do was to vote against the government because they don't like the government that's what that's happened in all of these islands and unless mark my words unless you do not get agreement between an opposition and a government to amend those deeply entrenched provisions in this constitution we're not going to get anywhere I mean there was one country and there are some countries who have life easier Barbados can amend this constitution easily they don't have no referendum requirements trade out is another that can amend this constitution fairly easy in Jamaica they amended their bill of rights and created a new bill of rights patting it again the bill of rights in Canada because because their constitution was no was much more facilitated that's the reason why so a referendum not tools to play with what the opposition really wants is to go for a referendum where's a pile of money going up and down the country shouting and screaming talk you know and talked about the usual things that's what they want you know it's political embarrassment and political mischief because if you really go for a referendum it's really a vote they want they want to see what the chronometer is saying about the government that said I don't really want to cause mischief but you know what you you cannot on the one hand claim that you are faithful to the constitution you respect the constitution and then on the other hand what you are doing effectively is to try to denature the constitution violate the very safe constitution by imposing a requirement which the constitution does not impose that's what you're doing you have no respect for the constitution if you can't appoint a deputy speaker for five years how can you come to me and claim your respect in the constitution you won't referendum how can you do that and why should anybody believe you why should anybody believe you you create a precedent and there's one lesson I have learned that's prime minister succeeding prime minister is better understand this let me tell you something a constitution can never be a complete document it can never anticipate all the problems you will have a constitution or just bones some might have more bones than others because they have more detail you will meet situations in public life that you never dreamed of or you never thought possible and the constitution will have no answers but you know what you know how we deal with it as our society develops as we become more sophisticated as our politics evolves we try to create certain conventions and practices to fill in the gaps we are a young nation 44 years old I was around when independence occurred in 79 and I was wrong we are a young nation we are hard on ourselves we don't understand that we are evolving we will not get it right all the time we will make mistakes but we can't afford to be as hard on ourselves because say what they what they will we have been able to govern and manage ourselves notwithstanding all the problems we have had we have done it we have done it yes we have problems we have issues but one thing I have learned is this when I look back at the last couple years and what happened with the tenure of the last government what are you going to parliament in the past mrs speaker and I notice I haven't called your name for a while mrs speaker when we introduce legislation sometimes I acted in the belief which turned out to be wrong and naive that my successor would understand why certain legislative postures were adopted and that in turn having come to power will respect what was created and applied whether we want to admit it or not that was an important lesson from the tenure of john Compton says john Compton and he applied it in the context of the deputy speaker when you see the labor party agreed after the debacle of 79 after they were almost annihilated politically to accept the deputy speaker position in those days it was understood between the two that it was an agreement between the parties when we lost the general election of 2006 he sent the member of a castries north to me and asked me whether I would accept or would agree to one of my members in deputy speaker and I told him I will have none of it why because in the face of that victory I needed to protect my six members to be sure that we can deliver the punches we needed to deliver but you know what he did he promptly resolved it by appointing one of his elected members as deputy speaker and that didn't stop the relationship talking to each other never did because you see you act on the basis that there are conventions that fill in gaps in your political practice and so you're going to rely on those commitments now I had expected that the honorable member for miku south would have understood that and would have dealt with the deputy speaker situation because you know why you know why because it is important for the people of the country to see that you have been faithful to the constitution which they accepted you govern them that's why you do those things it doesn't have political benefits like it will necessarily when you vote but what it does it maintains the sanctity of your fundamental document the document you say that governs your life that's what it is but I'm happy that there'll be an amendment and I would want to give meaning to this when it is convenient at that time we now come to this matter of this referendum member for view for itself you have 10 minutes left no Mr Speaker I'm certain that our members will agree that I deserve an hour and possibly more but I'll take an hour remember for Henry north Mr Speaker permit me to invoke for you to turn in the standing orders to allow the honorable member for view for itself an additional 30 minutes within which you complete this presentation you want to you want okay Mr Speaker correction um permit me to suspend 32 8 to allow the parliamentary representative for for south an additional hour within which to complete his presentation on the bill before the house all the members the question is that standing order 32 8 be suspended to allow the member of view for itself an additional 60 minutes in which to complete this presentation and I'll put a question as many as that opinion say aye as many as of a country opinion say no leave his granted proceed member thank you mr speaker thank you very very much sorry I had to extract that from the member for denry north but never mind mr speaker now mr speaker I now turn to the question do we need a referendum as I said earlier this matter has been double law efforts and the government which I led out of deference to the minority who insisted decided to put the matter to the court albeit for an advisory opinion and we know that an advisory opinion is not a binding decision of the court it is not the process of of the liberate of litigation before the court it only offers an indication of how a court is likely to rule and I really want to commend to everybody in this house to read the advisory opinion of the court of appeal but I want to start by saying to the people of seduction that as much as we may criticize the framers of our constitution nevertheless nevertheless it was very clear that the framers of our constitution knew that the time would come when we would have when we would have had to sever links to the prior council they knew that and they reflected it in this document and I want you to look at a particular section we'll be talking about section 41 7 subsection 8 now just just just look at it for a minute 41 right in section 46 it says how you must amend the constitution for those deeply entrenched provisions the ones where you require like a three-quarters majority and a referendum it says that you must have those specified majorities and you will have to have a referendum if you touch those sections like for example the sections dealing with your fundamental rights freedom of association freedom of expression etc then it goes on to say in subsection 7 the provision of paragraph b of subsection 6 of the section shall not apply in relation to any bill to alter it is saying that the provision to have specified majorities to alter a change the deeply entrenched provisions of the constitution like the establishment of courts your fundamental rights etc establishment of the house of assembly etc and you require specified majorities and referendum but in this instance specified on 41 7 you do not need that it says the provisions of paragraph b of section 6 of this section shall not apply in relation to any bill to alter and says section 107 of the constitution in order to give effect to any agreement between st. Lucia and the united kingdom concerning appeals from any court having jurisdiction in st. Lucia to her majesty and what does it mean it simply means it simply means that this requirement for you to have a specified majority and to have a referendum for the deeply entrenched provisions of the constitution does not apply in the case where you have an agreement with the bridge government and you enter into an international agreement and of course where you deal with the matter of appeals to her majesty and counsel the privy council it says I'm going to repeat it section 107 of this constitution order to give effect to any agreement between st. Lucia and the united kingdom concerning appeals from any court having jurisdiction in st. Lucia to her majesty and counsel so you don't need to satisfy those earlier requirements about referendum about specified majority if you are dealing with an agreement regarding those appeals that go to the privy council her majesty and counsel so what referendum you talk to me about when you establish a Caribbean court of justice it was an agreement it was an international agreement why do you have to write to her majesty's government well it's not her majesty the king's government is this why you have to write to the king's about your decision to amend your constitution because it is in fulfillment of that requirement that you have entered into an agreement an international agreement a treaty and you are saying to the king's government we are ready to proceed and we need your concurrence and of course the member for castries is gave you the responsibility so the framers were clearly understood but you know what I find particularly fascinating mrs speaker mrs figure look at it look at it okay you know what I find fascinating is you know I tell you somehow somebody knew and understood that somewhere in time in history that if it may be possible to secure an agreement between caracum governments governments in the region you understand mrs figure to establish a court to replace the privy council I am certain that is what at the back of their minds now but then clear as this is you still have problems so we go to the advisory opinion and then of course that section 41 which is a big issue and I have referred to when the talk of exceeding to the caribbean court of justice came around obviously we looked at all the caribbean constitutions to see what they had though we see as constitutions dominica granados and kids and then we noticed that the commonwealth of dominica had proceeded to the caribbean court of justice and its constitution had a nearly similar provision to ours so the question arose why dominica and not st lucer if the provisions in law we say in paramaterial almost identical but why them are not us now just to explain to you I'm going to read the dominica provision and read the st lucer provision so you can understand this thing a little better don't let them bamboozle you there no need to be bamboozle don't let them bamboozle you now st lucer first st lucer 41 section 41 subsection 7 subsection 8 the provision of paragraph b of subsection 6 of this section shall not apply in relation to any bill to alter a section 1 or 7 of this constitution in order to give effect to any agreement between st lucer and the united kingdom concerning appeals from any court having jurisdiction in st lucer to her majesty council this is st lucer dominica now and i'm looking at dominica section 42 subsection 4a that's the equivalent it says the provisions of this paragraph b of this of subsection 3 of this section shall not apply in relation to any bill to alter a section one or six of this constitution in order to give effect to any agreement between dominica and the united kingdom concerning appeals from any court having jurisdiction in dominica to the judicial committee now if my students were sitting in the how they're sharp enough sharp enough they might pick up they might pick up the little difference although they might need the aid of the difference is this the section in the dominica constitution to which reference is made that section 106 of the constitution of dominica is not the same section that the constitution of st lucer refers to section 106 of the constitution of dominica is referring to appeals from the court of appeal to the judicial committee of the privy council so in a dominica case the reference section was to appeals to the privy council so the dominica constitution made it absolutely clear that the agreement you are talking about has to be in the context of dealing with the issue of appeals to the privy council that's the first limb don't let them bamboozle you i tell you now said lucian what was the problem let's go back said lucian says the provisions of paragraph b of subsection six of the section shall not apply in relation to any bill to alter section one of seven of this constitution in order to give effect to any agreement between said lucian the united kingdom concerning appeals from any court having jurisdiction in said lucian to a majesty council now when you take the solution constitution and we now go to section 107 listen to what section 107 says and this is where the problem lies and this is where the problem lies section 107 says subject to the provisions of section 39 eight of this constitution an appeal shall lie from decisions of the high court to the court of appeal as of right in the following cases final decisions in any civil or criminal proceedings on questions as to the interpretation of this constitution final decisions given in exercise of the jurisdiction conferred on the high court by section 16 of this constitution which relates to the enforcement of the fundamental rights misjudgment and such other cases as may be prescribed by palm in other words the section in dominica is directing us to where the agreement should be with the majesty to the link that is to the privic also in our case it is directing us to the decisions of the court of appeal but who wants to change the structure of a court of appeal a structure that is entrenched by agreement you can't do that yes parliament can prescribe can certainly prescribe establishment of courts so the question then became that if there is a variation in that the reference in seducia was different from dominica then was there an error no you know us in the region you know us in the region white men can't make mistakes you know i'm sorry for sounding that way but we believe because you see is white men in englandy they would rob this constitution and so on they tell you i'm outrageous i'm being racist you know me already always say it's not my fault all kind of nonsense but if the since this constitution is drafted was drafted by the colonial office menu with the input of local politicians they will tell you them fellows in england can't make mistakes the mistake is ours we don't want to make a mistake that's them that's them but the reality is that it was a mistake because there's one other constitution like it which is similarly worded and that is the constitution of the federation of said christopher anivas and the reference which i shall not bother to go through with you today the reference in this constitution despite the differences the reference is identical to the dominica constitution and the court said they are fortified in their view that it was a mistake in the case of the constitutional situation so the question to be settled in saint lucia that is why we need to have respect for the decision of the court the question is whether there was a mistake in the constitution and i'm now going to turn to the judgment of the court very briefly in the majority opinion of the the court and they put that question very well in fact i'm going to read it out i'm going to read it out to you question was whether the reference in section 41 section seven a of the constitution should properly be to section 108 instead of section 107 and section 108 is what governs appeals to the previcom so if yes was a reference to 107 an error and the chief justice again put it differently the question may essentially be stated thus is the reference to section 107 in section 41 7 a of the constitution instead of 108 an error that is a typographical or printing error which would be correct which should be corrected or does the section read as a framers of the constitution intended it that's how the chief justice put it now we decided as i said earlier to refer the matter for an advisory opinion and i want to just remind the public of who appeared before the court it says queens council appeared on behalf of some members of the st lucha bar association who put forward a legal opinion given by dr. Lloyd Barnett prepared the request of the st lucha bar association council on behalf of the other members of the st lucha bar association council on behalf of the leader of the opposition in st lucha so you see the leader of the opposition at the time was was represented also president of the herring was mr. Richard williams attorney at law attending the proceedings on behalf of the attorney general of st vincent the grenadines whose constitution is said to contain a similar reference at section 47 a of the st lucha constitution now there's a story about Lloyd Barnett the eminent Caribbean jurist because the bar association had him give Lloyd Barnett to give an opinion as to whether there was an error Lloyd Barnett is famous he's distinguished he wrote one of the first constitutional treaties of Caribbean constitutions the constitution of Jamaica and he had an incredible history in the courts of Jamaica do you know Lloyd Barnett told the told about association that he agrees that there was an error in in the constitution distinguished council you know told the very persons who recruited him to go and argue for them that he told them there was an error and the judge makes reference to this to this subsequently now the courts concluded in really prominent language that there was an error in our constitution and this is what the chief justice said in paragraph 27 and I want to read it to you to put it on the record because this this debate is too important not to read those things into into the record and we need to do so today this is what the judge said the provisions of the supreme court order entrenched in section 41 subsection 6 b do not deal with appeal to the previous council from any court in St. Lucia it is therefore inconceivable as to what agreement could possibly be contemplated between St Lucia and the United Kingdom regarding appeals from the high court to the court of appeal which is what section 107 concern that I tried to explain earlier which would somehow concern appeals from any court in St Lucia to the previous council the reference to section 107 and 41 7 a in my view makes no sense whatsoever and leads to an absurdity in construing this provision without you have judge use such language judges don't use language like that yes truly talk about manifest absurdity but that's rare a judge is saying that the provision in a constitution is absurd it leads to an absurdity section 107 bears no rational connection to appeals to the previous council and similarly an alteration of section 107 to give effect to an agreement between St Lucia and the UK concerning appeals to the previous council from a court in St Lucia is simply in my view nonsensical as section 107 simply does not deal with such appeals you think a judge would put a neck on a block make a statement like that unless he was not absolutely convinced of what she was writing I don't even think just to keep justice Baron would have could have put it more eloquent and more directly than that I don't think so his language is different is a different quality of erudition and you know this is this is I want you to understand I want the people of St Lucia to understand what Mr Shasne is saying what the leader of the opposition is saying now you need a referendum the constitution prescribed the referendum so you must have a referendum and I hope I'm taking them through in the simplest way that I can to explain this and why our Chief Justice has to say this is nonsense and you know I know what their response is going to be to be to be you know oh ah Chief Justice they have to go to the Pripyat Council I don't know the Pripyat Council will say the same thing but I'll come to that in a few minutes and the court concluded that there was an error in our constitution and if you then as I said read paragraph 27 and proceeds to answer all the questions put before the court and again for history I'm going to read paragraph 41 of that judgment of that decision so and these are the questions the court was asked to answer Mr. Speaker question one whether the reference in section 47 47 of the constitution should properly be to section 108 instead of 107 if yes was a reference to 107 an error answer yes if the answer to question one is yes whether the error may be judicially corrected merely upon the determination of this application or by an application of by the Attorney General to a judge of the High Court or must the error be corrected by an alteration to the constitution answer yes the constitution ought to be read and construed as if section 107 in section 41 subsection 7 subsection 8 were deleted and section 108 substituted there is no need for further application to the High Court which in any event has no jurisdiction to determine a question for an order the power to interpret such a question having been given by Parliament to the Court of Appeal by virtue of the Act question three if the answer to question one is yes is yes whether the agreement established in the Caribbean Court of Justice signed on February 14th 2001 and ratified by St. Lucia on July 5th 2002 and enacted into the laws of St. Lucia as a Caribbean Court of Justice Agreement Act number 34 of 2003 constitutes an international agreement to which St. Lucia is a party for the provisions for the purpose of the provisions of section 41 subsection 7 subsection b the answer is yes if the answer to question one and two is yes whether for the purpose of an alteration of the constitution to replace appeals to a Majesty in Council with appeals to the Caribbean Court of Justice the agreement between St. Lucia and the United Kingdom reference in section 41 subsection 7a may validly be entered into by St. Lucia alone or in common or more other the more other states of the organization of East Caribbean state which may have similar constitutional provisions may validly be entered into prior to the passage of bill referred in subsection 41 to yes such an agreement must predate the presentation of the bill to alter the constitution to give effect to the agreement and here we have it that was the process that is the logic that is explanation why we need no referendum because our constitution did not contemplate any referendum but there are other important issues and a member of castries is was heavy on the point of access and I too want to say a few words about this you know we can talk always one about justice about the rule of law and what the value of justice is but you know unless citizens enjoy the protection of the law which of course translates into unimpeded access to the courts it can never be just all right it they can never ever get the full benefit the fruits of justice they will not get it access to the courts become critical and the point is clear this is this thing has continued for too long it can never be just all right that access to justice is only for those who can afford it it can be rights that's why I will quarrel when my courts if you vote across for months it can't be rights it cannot be because access to justice is critical and in our judicial system yes three tears we have a magistrate court and if you prefer a high court although high court has different restrictions the magistrates court the court of appeal and pretty comes when you go to the magistrates court you're entitled of course to appeal your whatever whatever decision against you go to the court of appeal if you want when you go to the high court you're entitled to appeal from the high court to the court of appeal but then of course from the court of appeal then you are entitled to appeal to the private council and the member of country east is right we have thousands of cases being filed every day in this country how many of these cases widely aware to the private council in the last 20 years as he rightly said we have roughly had 17 appeals in 20 years and you will tell me that they're not ordinary solutions who won their cases heard a third time by a third court to determine whether the issue was that with failure and justly at the court of appeal or the high court but you know what what they can't get there they can't get there is it you will believe you think they don't have no right to appeal to the people because they have no reason to appeal to the people council like the member for castries is the issue has always been cost and it's no joke it's no joke massively these days massively these days we can follow deliberations by zoom as i'll tell you in a few minutes and look at some of the costs to file for an interlocketry matter in other words a matter to interpret the rules as to whether you follow your form the proper procedure to put it simply in the uk is 700 pounds and you're talking about almost three three thousand dollars if you're filing an appeal that involves damages monetary damages no you have to find about five thousand two hundred pounds immediately and if you're going to how if you're going to engage an english solicitor or barrister whatever to go before the premier council for an hour or two just in a matter to sick leave for example if it's not paper leave know that you have to find two thousand five hundred pounds which purpose in st lusia can find two thousand five hundred pounds now don't come and tell me that in the case of criminal cases they get appeals done freely because i've told you why that is done in the uk a lot of that is done in the uk not because maybe they are decent lawyers in the uk that believe in human rights but also because it fulfills and sustains the agenda of the premier council to abolish hanging in these islands so they are busy making sure that those who commit criminal offenses for one reason or another are properly represented and you can't persuade me otherwise you know now but talk to sedition lawyers who have gone to the premier council and they'll tell you the kind of money their clients have had to pay talk to seditions who have had recent cases before the premier council asked them how much they have had to foot for the bills and you know the system in the uk is divided between solicitors and barristers solicitors of course are the ones who do the initial leg work the administrative arrangement and so on and brief the barristers etc the barristers do the actual argument most importantly we're not like that in st lucer our lawyers do both the work of solicitors and barristers although you'll be careful what heart you wear when the solicitors fees in the uk for filing and and i'm engaging in the administrative management of a matter will cost you between 65 000 to 75 000 appearances by barrister the upwards of a hundred thousand dollars so mr speaker what you put your light on for who in st lucer mr speaker would be able to pay for this kind of money pay this kind of money now contrast this mr speaker with costs at the canyon court of justice filing fees are divided into two categories namely applications for what we call special leave if you have problems where you leave it will be refused by your own court or appeal without a right an appeal for special leave to the ccj will cost you us dollars 250 for civil cases and i like that that consumes less than a thousand pages if you want to file a case and you're going to file a thousand pages the filing fee is us 250 dollars mr speaker for a similar period that consumes more than a thousand but less than 2000 pages the filing fee is us dollars 750 for a similar appeal that consumes more than 2000 pages the filing fee payable is us 1200 in effect no little gun will ever pay more than us dollars 1200 if special leave was necessary and us 250 dollars if special leave was necessary in filing fees is the ccj this is irrespective of the amount of money involved in the litigation incidentally mr speaker no fees are paid in criminal matters and let me add mr speaker every applicant for special leave or every appellant is entitled under the rules to apply for waiver fees there's a rule 10 18 in the rules of procedure that allows the ccj to completely waive all filing fees for a poor person who has an arguable ground of appeal the rules set other criteria for determining who is to be regarded as a poor person that's the reality mr speaker and i am confident that the day the ccj is the final court of appeal we will begin to see a rush to seek judgment by sent lutions in a way they were never able to do under the previous counsel and you are trying to tell me that sent lutions don't deserve this don't deserve the right to find out whether the courts below have made the right decisions and they tell you you that it's a creature politicians and you know what is the worst most perverse it is a uwi train cabal that set up the court and that is in league with the court now i take deep offense to that and i take deep offense to that i am a uwi graduate and i have two degrees from uwi with first class honors and i'm as good as any student anywhere in the world look i'm returning that nonsense u is far better than many universities in canada and the united states why you believe they're number five university in the hemisphere look i'm in a stupid argument and and we feel you can contaminate me and divide you me because i have to you i've been university in the uk i did the bar in the uk i know what it takes i did my phd and the bar together in two years two three years before nonsense you come and tell me and try to do the value of my my degree and tell me that your uwi cabal and i would say this because i know mr speaker time is coming away i will say this mr speaker no community of nations in the world today has taken steps to ensure the integrity of a court that it has established then the car come nation states why do i say that mr speaker and don't don't come to mention to me about united states you know i come in there you don't come to me and tell me about united states or i'm coming there you know or the uk you know you see mr speaker let me tell you you the member of the cathedrals is i told you no government can hold a decision to run some because we established what you call a trust fund the government's borrowed a hundred million dollars to finance the court and the court has been financed from the earnings of the trust fund so no government can see if you don't do my bidding i'm not i'm not going to fund the court as has happened in the region i admitted it has happened mr speaker their government was guilty of that you know in our region and they had to be taught a lesson they had to be taught a lesson mr speaker and i'll come to that in a few minutes secondly the member of cathedrals speaking is for the independence of the courts the mechanism for appointing judges the judges have regional judicial legal services commission no politician has access to that even though we may be quietly disgruntled with the decisions of the of the judicial and legal services commission i have seen them make choices and i disagree with the choices but i'm not going to berate the court for that or lose confidence because of that nonsense and i want you to tell them compare and come today as has been a case of independence in the united states judges to the supreme court in the us are selected by the senate a political body and today in the united states their democracy facing pressure could possibly implode internally why because what they did when trump was president was to load the court load the court with their political appointees and the americans are now beginning to feel a bite of it that to exist in the carabin and when i tell you we sell our country short it is things like that that i remember that we don't even know and understand our inheritance our democracy now look at the united kingdom i had to tell you about the privet council and how the privet council is distant and they did not know that until until now the judges of the privet council are the same judges in the house of lords and the house of lords was the second legislative chamber in the united kingdom that they sat in the house of lords just like other lords who are funded by political parties that's why they call it the house of lords what more political connection do you want from that but you know it was on the blend our blood did something very interesting this is bigger blood did something very interesting black turned around when he realized what was happening he then established a supreme court and you know where he took the inspiration from he took the inspiration from these constitutions in our region and the constitutions handed down to african countries to establish a supreme court to try to make it independent and change the method of appointment that is you come and tell me about political the only point the only point of interaction comes when the president of the caribbean court of justice has to be appointed and the procedure is clear the regional judicial legal services commission they invite applications they assess the applications and they make a recommendation because somebody has to appoint the president of the court and to this day every recommendation the judicial regional judicial legal services commission has made the governments have gone along they've never questioned that really the appointment by the heads of government of the president of the court there's nothing more than a shall we say a little convention to signal appointment so what are you telling me about political interference I tell this when I served as head of department of the faculty of law I participated in training many graduates of the universities in law I'm very proud of what we produced and today I see many of them are judges in our region different parts of the world I'll tell you another sadness for me is that when I see them I can't talk to them they're my ex-students she just is rolling start from what she just is rolling sat in my class at Gabriel I can't talk to him when I see him hi hello because of the respect and of the reverence your judge and it is this this service that continues and at that close mr. speaker this argument about fixing judiciary before going to the ccj only needs to be stated to be rejected why mr. speaker the council has been around this time what impact has the privy council had on the quality of the justice in the region apart from rendering appeals what reforms can you say you can direct to the privy council all the privy council has done sometimes is interpret our constitution to do that your logical bidding I've not tackled the problems that you have in the law judiciary mr. speaker how on earth how on earth you're going to stay and retain the privy council to tackle those problems what is the specialty about the privy council should be around when you tackle your problems it is the our failing over the years and we have not followed in in our case the example of the former labor government to bring changes to the judiciary and we must we are the ones for goodness sake that establish a criminal jurisdiction of the high court and all the changes that exist the evidence act etc we don't want to do so and we need to continue bringing changes to the court this business and i come back to that the people in my constituency cannot get access because of the problem of the magistrate court that should not exist we're different now let me conclude do i say two things this is fair of the caribbean court of justice and politicians you know mr. speaker i am so very proud of the caribbean court of justice and whatever can be so far you see every politician around this table should have a mortal fear of the direction that the jurisdiction of the court is taken in respect of the accountability of politicians and there are two cases that i want to mention very briefly but i know i don't have the time to go through them with the detail that i need mr. speaker i do mr. speaker you're generous then i will proceed and barren nine mr. speaker okay yes you know the door to blue very nice speaker the caricom treaty exists to give us certain rights we have expanded our rights as citizens of our country and as citizens of the region now it is a right that we don't understand that's not explained to us and it isn't because i see the venerable president of the ccj here or the former chief justice of the ocs whatever one of the most important decisions that was ever given by the court was a decision in a case called myrie where a jamaican national who had traveled to barbadas was unlawfully detained and searched the airport in barbadas and the court said you cannot do that under the caricom treaty you are wrong that she's entitled to the rights conferred by the treaty it was a path-breaking decision and since then we have had a free tour of other cases our own eddie ventus the solution professor at the at the faculty of law of the university at the very last hour on the eve of the general election was able to accede to the jurisdiction of the court and asked for a ruling as to whether he was a citizen entitled to be registered as a voter on the eve of election in barbadas and the court heard him on a sunday afternoon by an exchange as you know about through a portal that he be registered as a person entitled to be on the voter's list and to vote in barbadas and that is it what i'm talking about enlarging the rights we don't properly grasp it but that is in respect of the treaty or rights under the caricom treaty and citizens of the caribbean are not making use of it as they should and then mr speaker you had a famous case and belize has been producing some famous cases there's a case called florin marin and jose koi and the attorney general of belize decided upon by the ccg and it is a judge doing that concerns redress against former ministers for corrupt behavior in public office or abuse of ministerial powers and privileges for personal benefit which result in financial injury or loss of the state of the crown now you're always here they're not interested in politicians and in a lecture i did recently i traced the history of the courts dealing with politicians and in fact i was pointing out that politicians in our region are gradually being encircled by the courts and they don't have as much room to move like they think they did in that case the attorney general belize filed a claim against two former ministers of the belizean government alleging that during their respective terms of ministerial office they arranged a transfer of 56 egg passes of land to a company beneficially owned or controlled by one of them it was further alleged that the consideration paid by the purchasing company was almost one million dollars below market value and that this transaction was undertaken deliberately with outlook for lawful authority and in bad faith let me go over the facts again briefly and i'm doing it so for the benefit of our people who are listening the allegation is that two ministers arrange for 56 acres of land that belonged to the government to to be well and they were dealing with 56 acres to be dealing to be made available owned by a company of which they beneficially owned or in fact was controlled by one of them to benefit themselves now you i'm sure you have heard echoes of that before and the amount paid by the benefit one of those one million dollars below the market and and this was well below the market value so the attorney general claimed that there was a significant loss of the crown in the amount of nine hundred and twenty four thousand and fifty six dollars so the crown was denied an additional sum of money for the land and the question was which you need not focus on because that was a debate between the court was whether the attorney general could maintain an action against two former ministers of the deletion government for the tort of miss pheasants in public office now there had never been a judgment that confirmed that you can file and succeed in a tort of miss pheasants in public office yes you can have miss pheasants in public office in public law but not in tort and a majority of the court decided yes the time had come to expand the boundaries of tort to our ministers to be held liable for this tort that there was nothing standing in the way of preventing this tort now you know the fascinating thing about this case the persons who made that decision of the court were very young jurists and two of the leading members of the court just the sounders and of course the former president of the court disagreed and you're telling me you try to tell me it's a court of cowards a court of cowards and in that is a message for all politicians because rest assured that the same law that was applied in belize also applies here it also applies here and the good thing is that in the prevention of corruption act of the special prosecutor legislation parliament ensured that the tort of miss pheasants in public office was a ground was a ground for those politicians who may have engaged in corrupt acts they took no chances the second case i want to touch on and this is one i disagree fundamentally with the judgment concerns a matter of accountability in electoral matters and i disagree with with that judgment is the case of rusevelt's carrot regional austry and and one default now there's an old english term they're called treating and in england in england on english common law treating is unlawful in other words treating means that if you are engaged in a political campaign and other campaign the rally you are serving people free rum free food you know i mean free bear then according to that you are engaged in treating and you are there for committing an unlawful act and therefore if you the person was elected by virtue of those activities then couple smoke your pipe now you want to tell me you are though you should i mean the prime minister should make this case mandatory for all of you you know why because come next election couple smoke your pipe big i wouldn't be wrong couple smoke your pipe because you may well find yourself engaging in treating now what happened in this case for me it was an astonishing judgment the court of appeal the high court i think it was hell that it had jurisdiction to consider the charge of treating before it against rusevelt and his team of ministers it went to the court of appeal and the court of appeal i think ruled against the high court judge and said no no no if there's an allegation of treating because it touches on the issue of membership of the offender in parliament then in that case it's a constitutional matter and a constitutional claim should have been brought the ccj reversed the high court of appeal the cj said the magistrate is right because the magistrate was conferred at the restriction and the magistrate was right to hear the charges and determine the charges even if the question of membership becomes a secondary question would you imagine placing elected members accused perhaps of treating at the mercy of a magistrate who is at the lower rung of the judicial ladder on such a significant matter and i'm paraphrasing i don't have the time and yet the caribbean court of justice said yes a magistrate can make that decision and should make that decision you know the intriguing thing was that accessing the magistrate the jurisdiction of the magistrate was a very simple thing because you know accessing the magistrates was relatively simple and what is my message to you one my message to you is that the caribbean court of justice is a fearless institution it has never been afraid to rule against politicians it has um it has delivered some of the most painful decisions that affect politicians for which politicians will have to be on their guard and perhaps doing things that no other court could do now i disagree with a judgment in that dominican case i think they were wrong is that a reason for me to lose faith and confidence in the court mr speaker the answer is no and i'm all reminded of religious individuals and churches and so on when pastors sin whether it is a catholic church or the anican church and they come in all manner of sin and then engage in all kind of infidelity and the general blacks should i lose confidence in praying to our god or going to church because of their human errors and human mistakes no i would still go to church i'll do it anyway i don't go to church i don't know where to get those things from but be there as it means so i disagree but that doesn't mean that i should lose faith i agree with the court of appeal ruling that really this touched on the issue of membership that really that should have been dealt with by a constitutional motion i agree that's my view and in my own writing on the issue i've criticized the court for it but the wider point is that they've had the courage courage mr speaker to rule against political elites of our region mr speaker i want to end on this note mr speaker an event took place yesterday that has monumental implications for the future of the laws of this country and the courts of this country i'm aware that the matter was touched on in sub july k but i'm not in a business of program making any pronouncements regarding the outcome what i think about the arguments and so i'm not gonna do that that's not what i'm about this speaker so you don't need to invoke a standing order to strike me down mr speaker it's an issue that was before the court and i'm talking about the case that involves two members of this chamber the leader of the opposition and the member of castry south in issue before the court was whether an article in our civil code which allowed for the importation of english law meant that in those areas where references were made whether the law the term law for the time being meant that the meaning was ambulatory such that it referred not to the law that existed in 1957 when the amendments were made but to all english laws after 1957 put the single mrs speaker the question was whether a defamation act enacted by the united kingdom in 2013 was by virtue of that provision the law of st lucer in 2023 now if the privy council agrees with the court of appeal this would lead to the most dramatic and revolutionary interpretation of the laws of this country and what it would mean is that in those subject areas the defamation awkward eye contracts or otherwise that if you want to find out what the law of st lucer we have to go to england to find out what the english did know what their laws are and apply down here what they call mutatis mutandis if the argument is right what does this have to do with all of this i am not saying that a ccj would have cured this that's not my point i'm far from a mrs speaker but you know what the chickens are coming home to ruse it is our objury refusal to tackle our inheritance that's a problem everybody i wrote about this matter extensively i know how much of justice baron is aware of it it has found itself in his judgments and we should have dealt with that a long time ago but we did not we did not because for some of us it pleased us that somehow we allowed for the importation of english law to govern our business 44 years after independence you want to tell me that if solutions want to find out what the law is they have to go to the english parliament find out what the english parliament enacted find out which provisions apply to them and you want to tell me i must accept mrs speaker the retention of the preview council i must accept that inheritance you know tell me that mrs speaker that's what the problem is we don't want to look at our inheritance because we believe all things handed down from the imperial throne was good and right and proper that it protected us not knowing not knowing that we're injuring ourselves our legacy our reputation our thinking our being who we are and what we are no matter what decision the preview comes comes to comes to there's no question that this provision in our civil code will have to be reviewed and the attorney general better start to work on it now how could say blusher 44 years after independence tell me that its laws can only be understood if we know what the english parliament has enacted you think when they sit in the house of commons passing their laws they remotely remember that a little country like st lusia is interested in our laws or they'll have to follow their laws you think they care who supports st lusia they will snide and make their snide remarks you think they care what are we saying about ourselves and so mrs speaker on an end on this note this constitutional amendment is about us it is about ourselves it is about our future it is about our honor it is about integrity it's about the fact that we understand we as good as any anywhere in the world and we must never ever make the mistake of continuing to short change ourselves by believing that others are better than us our judges are as good as any anywhere dispensing justice all over the world and yes i have problems with judges yes i have problems with court decisions but that doesn't mean that because they are problems that they issues that we should dispense with what is rightfully ours and that we don't recognize the quality and brilliance of what we have mr speaker i asked the people i said lusia to give me the opportunity to speak to them i have been robust i admit i have been very robust in what i've said today and i hope i have said it in a way that they can understand me and why over the years i have championed the caribbean court of justice why i have been at the forefront of the caribbean court of justice and i said in this house before under no circumstances would i betray what i have believed in and what i have said i've said so before and there are times that some of you hear uncomfortable when i say that but you don't have to be uncomfortable because i want to be faithful to what i preached and if i sat and i come and participated and guided the drafting of that agreement sign it in 2014 commence the process that has taken us this far now being completed by my successor you expect me to come to this house repudiated on this fanciful notion of a referendum that is so unnecessary i can't do that neither my trading my conscience or my philosophy allows me to do so i thank you mr speaker for your tolerance and understanding remember for dan rino mr speaker i move for the suspension of the house until 3 15 p.m. on our members the question is that this shouldn't be suspended until 3 15 p.m. and i'll put a question as many as of that opinion say aye as many as the country opinion say no i think the eyes have it the eyes have it sit and suspend it all right kawaii blamem with a pre-prime minister present a motion say premier moon keep a lady city doctor kenny anthony if a guy on the on the store the store as to situation effective he'll be able to get an editor as a situation a big doctor antony women women women can play as a on situation he'll come he'd be a keep which a vexing he by a he'll be able to play a pill a very by total detail poem as to say he can pass a new guy new guy the view is here at There are three of us, and there are two of us in prison. As we are in prison, we have Dr. Kenny Antony and a student. A student who has come to attend the school. This is Arthur Lewis Community College. He has come to teach, and he has come to listen to what has happened. We are going to take a break, we are going to watch TV, we are going to visit the NTN TV station and the studio. We are going to avoid wasting our time. We are going to have three of us, and we are going to continue our journey in a simple way.