While in government, Mr. Panday and his United National Congress (UNC) were perhaps the most aggressive proponents of the CCJ, as the court of final appeal for most CARICOM states and in its role as having original jurisdiction in interpreting the treaty covering the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).

Latterly, however, with the UNC now in Opposition, Mr. Panday's party has lost its enthusiasm for the CCJ.

UNC spokespersons have rested their concerns over the CCJ, in part, on doubts about its likely efficacy. It is also emerging that Mr. Panday wants to link the CCJ to fundamental constitutional reform in Trinidad and Tobago.

It is to be recalled that after the recent close elections in Trinidad and Tobago, Mr. Panday's UNC and Prime Minister Patrick Manning's People's National Movement (PNM) tied, with 18 seats each, in the general election of December 2001.

Mr. Panday was angered by the decision of Trinidad and Tobago's then president, ANR Robinson, to name Mr. Manning prime minister. Other political developments have conspired to give Mr. Manning the slimmest of parliamentary majorities, but Mr. Panday insists that the UNC will not support any motion in the legislature that requires a qualified majority for passage.

The removal of the Privy Council as Trinidad and Tobago's court of last resort and its replacement with the CCJ is one of the issues that require a qualified majority, thereby leaving the country caught in a political miasma.

We feel that there are issues to be separated here. The uncertainty about election outcomes in Trinidad and Tobago and the controversies that attended the formation of the current government, suggest to us that there are indeed, some constitutional, including constituency delineation issues to be addressed if the country intends to maintain its first-past-the-post electoral system.

However, support for the CCJ was a critical policy position for the Panday government, even when its majority in the House was razor-thin and its hold on the government tenuous. The UNC government saw the CCJ as part of the process for a final repatriation of sovereignty for Trinidad and Tobago and its Caribbean Community partners.

The government also felt that there was a worthy Caribbean jurisprudence ready to be expanded and recognized. Mr. Panday, in other words, displayed confidence in Caribbean intellect and capacities.

Additionally, Trinidad and Tobago, under Mr. Panday, was a strong supporter of the CSME, of which the CCJ is an important adjunct. For people who will conduct business in this seamless, intra-Caribbean economic space will want to be assured that there is an appropriate, and binding system for judicial arbitration, as represented by the CCJ.

The current behaviour of Mr. Panday and his party on the CCJ is therefore different from what obtains in Jamaica, where the Opposition party, despite once embracing the idea of the regional court, has been clearly skeptical in recent years.

We would be excused, if we argued, that the UNC's current position is an opportunistic and cynical political act that sacrifices a fundamental principle on the alter of expediency.

If, and when, a CARICOM delegation finally meets Mr. Panday, he will, hopefully, be reminded of the logic that impelled the UNC into the idea of the court and made it such an ardent supporter. Maybe, he will be convinced to reverse the backsliding. (Jamaica Observer)