Cayman Islands Chief Justice, Hon. Anthony Smellie, is at odds with the Islands’ Governor, HE Duncan Taylor and the local Judicial and Legal Services Commission.

The Chief Justice last May presented a petition in May of this year about section 96(1) and section 106(1) asking her Majesty, the Queen of England to refer to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for advice and interpretation of these parts of the new constitution. These deal with the employment of judges past 65 years of age and complaints that can be made concerning members of the judiciary.

In a Privy Council release it said both these matters involve interpretation of the Cayman Islands Constitution Order, 2009.

The release further said that Governor Taylor had “applied to the judicial committee to advise Her Majesty that it would not be appropriate to give substantive advice on the merits of the two issues, primarily on the basis that these issues should be resolved, at any rate initially, in the Grand Court.” The Grand Court being the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands.

The UK’s top court will be making a decision on a point of general importance as to whether the Judicial Committee may decline to rule on issues raised in a petition referred to it by Her Majesty under the 1833 Act and, if so, the circumstances in which it would be appropriate for it to do so.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the appellate body, often referred to simply as “the Privy Council”, and was established by the Judicial Committee Act of 1833, an Imperial Act of the British Parliament. As appeals from colonial courts were historically ultimately referred to the Sovereign as the final arbiter of justice, such appeals were referred to the King or Queen who considered them upon the advice of His or Her Privy Council. The Privy Council became formalized as a Judicial Committee by the Act of 1833. Since 1876, this final appellate court has been comprised of members of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords (the final Appellate Court of the United Kingdom itself) as well as of other eminent jurists appointed from among the senior judiciary of other Commonwealth Courts.

Until recently, the Privy Council remained the final appellate court for most Commonwealth countries. Today it still presides in that capacity only for certain final appeals from within the United Kingdom and for appeals from the Courts of Appeal of the Channel Islands, The Isle of Man, The British Overseas Territories, including the Cayman Islands and a few Commonwealth countries, including the Bahamas.

Please keep coming back to iNews Cayman for an update which will be posted as soon as we hear the decision.