Meeting of Law Ministers and Attorneys General of small Commonwealth jurisdictions

A very warm welcome to Marlborough House, and to the 11th meeting of Law Ministers and Attorneys General of small Commonwealth jurisdictions.

I know the value of the term ‘legal precedent’, and it is there for all to see in that number ‘11’.

Yes: since 1983 this meeting has established both its value and its pedigree.

In those days, of course, the Secretary-General, Sonny Ramphal, was a lawyer of great distinction.

He was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn; he was crown counsel in the office of the Guyanese attorney-general, and solicitor-general in the short-lived West Indian Federation.

Without quite donning a scarlet robe and banging a gavel, he would have held forth to this meeting as a lawyer – a great advocate, and a great orator.

But first and foremost, he was and is of course a great human being, whose cause was ‘our common humanity’, and the betterment of human lives.

And that is surely the cause of each of us here this morning.

I confess that my studies were not in the law, but in literature, a fact which means that all sorts of unhelpful trivia are lodged in my brain.

My great favourite Dickens famously used Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist to proclaim that ‘the law is an ass’; and another great hero, Shakespeare, envisaged a brave new world in Henry VI, Part Two, in which: ‘The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers’.

But be assured that that is not why we have assembled you in one room today …!

Because respect for and implementation of the rule of law is a foundation of this association.

It has long been enshrined as a core value of the Commonwealth, and most recently in Article 5 of the Affirmation of Commonwealth Values and Principles, which was agreed by our respective Heads of Government in Trinidad and Tobago in December 2009.

‘Each country’s legislature, executive and judiciary are the guarantors of the rule of law … and access to justice and an independent judiciary are fundamental to the rule of law, enhanced by effective, transparent, ethical and accountable governance…’

Indeed, we might even say that the rule of law is the first of our core values ….

… because our democratic principles are just that: they are principles, the practice of which is constantly evolving.

We talk more about the democratic journey than the destination, and we celebrate different variants of democracy for different places.

But the rule of law, I would suggest, is something rather more absolute.

If Democracy is the ad meliora – one of the ‘better things’ to which we aspire – then the rule of law is the sine qua non, the ‘without which not’.

So that is why we welcome you here today, for a meeting that is central to the very being of this Commonwealth.

Also central to this Commonwealth are you, the ‘small states’ or the ‘small jurisdictions’.

Some 23 of you are here today – of which 20 are member countries of this 54-nation association, and 3 are less-than-fully sovereign jurisdictions.

The Commonwealth, as you know, can lay valid claim to having pioneered the very science of small states.

Alongside the World Bank, it issued two major reports in 2000 and 2005 – pinpointing the longstanding and newly emerging vulnerabilities of small states, but also their unique strengths and resilience.

We are a ‘Commonwealth of the Vulnerable’, among both nations and people. And small states are among our most vulnerable nations.

We know very well that – in the field of legal affairs – the most obvious manifestation of your own smallness is your lack of capacity, whether you are trying to enforce national or international law.

So too, as I have just said, are we a ‘Commonwealth of Values’, and the rule of law sits atop that tree.

So, too, are we a ‘Commonwealth of our Times’: this Meeting may revisit old challenges, but it also addresses new ones.

And the fourth leg of my Commonwealth chair is that we are a ‘Commonwealth of Partnership’ – working amongst each other, working with our Commonwealth non-governmental organizations in the legal field, working with the UN and its agencies – to achieve our goals.

So this meeting is another Commonwealth in miniature, and yet further testimony to the power of the network in addressing shared values, shared concerns, and shared challenges.

In my remarks today, let me also glance briefly at the Commonwealth at large, and then the Commonwealth ‘at law’, and then this Meeting and its agenda.

First, then, the Commonwealth.

All I want to say is that its Values may be sacrosanct, its Vulnerable may be its first constituency, and Partnership its way of working, but it simply must remain ‘of its Times’.

In Port of Spain last year, Heads tasked us with establishing an Eminent Persons Group of independent observers to develop options for reform on how we can sharpen our impact, strengthen our networks, and raise our profile.

A Group of eleven such people is in place, under former Prime Minister Badawi of Malaysia, with the highest level of representation from across the continents and oceans, the sexes, and the generations.

It is consulting far and wide, and receiving the attention it deserves.

I mention it now, because I seek your involvement.

Whether you complete its questionnaire – or whether you are vocal in this meeting – we welcome all that you say to us, however critical, as to how we can be better.

So we will convey your thoughts to the EPG, with pleasure.

Second, the Commonwealth at law.

Since you last met, you will know that Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth in November 2007, in part because of a flagrant flouting of the Latimer House Principles, when the judiciary was dismissed.

I am delighted to add the postscript that Pakistan was returned to our councils the following April.

Meanwhile Fiji’s full suspension, confirmed in September 2009, was also in part a legal matter: the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group cited ‘the undermining of the independence of the judiciary and legal system’.

So we will defend the rule of law.

And so, too, will we promote it.

Recently, I was in Nairobi, just weeks after the voting in of a new Kenyan constitution, for which the Commonwealth has been asked to provide legal draughtsmen.

We will help to develop laws in four areas: finance, devolution, land, and electoral systems.

I then flew on to Lusaka, where the Zambians, too, are in the earlier stages of developing a new constitution, which – they have said – may also create a role for us.

I have just returned from the Maldives, where I held extensive consultations on how we can help to strengthen the judicial sector.

Now is not the time to elucidate all of the excellent work such as this, which is carried out on your behalf by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division here in Marlborough House.

I can only recommend to you Provisional Agenda Item Two in your files, which is an exceptional report on that work.

Several things strike me about that report.

First, the fact that nothing is set in stone.

It is no negative sign that we have dropped the Law Development Section and moulded it into the Criminal Law Section and the Justice Section.

That is an example of ‘moving with the times’ – and straitened times, at that.

Second, I am struck by the fact that our legal work spreads its tentacles right across the Commonwealth Secretariat.

For instance, the team’s work on juvenile justice strengthens our separate youth work, and its work on women’s property law and rights strengthens the work of our gender equality programme.

Third, I welcome the way in which the team’s work strengthens both pillars of the Commonwealth: democracy and development.

You would, of course, expect us to strengthen democracy, for instance in fighting corruption, and strengthening our court systems.

But the work we have done, for instance, in unlocking the Law of the Sea to allow 14 of our member countries to claim an additional 2 million square kilometres of seabed is akin to opening a developmental floodgate, and an ocean of economic possibility.

These examples speak again to the inter-relatedness of this Commonwealth.

I often cite the example of the post-9/11 world, and the way in which we brought both technical help to that situation, as well as creative thinking.

On the one hand, Kofi Annan rang my predecessor Don McKinnon and asked for the Commonwealth’s help in drafting model anti-terrorism and anti-moneylaundering laws, to allow countries to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1383.

On the other hand, we also took the broader view on the causes of and remedies for the fractures in our societies, with the publication of the Civil Paths to Peace report.

That report in fact led to further legal work of the type I have just mentioned, in strengthening the hand of women and young people in our societies.

So let me take this opportunity to thank the Director of our Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division, Akbar Khan, and all his team.

Not only have they prepared this meeting to the very highest standards, but their ongoing work is broad and deep, and of enormous value.

Finally, and far too quickly, I know, I glance at your own Meeting agenda for these next two days.

I see a colourful and comprehensive tableau of the legal challenges before you.

I take particular interest in the focus on the role of Attorney-General, and have enjoyed the paper by QC Colin Nicholls.

‘The painfullest task in the realm’ it may be, and here I am borrowing the quote from Francis Bacon on the first page of Mr Nicholls’ report, in your folders.

We would fully endorse the call for independence, but so, too, the call for accountability.

I also note that you will discuss e-justice.

In doing so, you are in tune with a Commonwealth which believes absolutely in the transformative power of technology, as an agent of change both for democracy and development.

On my recent Kenyan visit I witnessed the powerful result of a Commonwealth-designed national e-health strategy, and I ask you to think similarly big.

Also, ask yourselves how your own approach to e-justice can be incorporated in what we call the ‘CP3’ – the Commonwealth Partnership Platform Portal – which is in essence a monumental website for the Commonwealth and the world, designed to collate information and best practice, to create ever more links and networks, and indeed to make actual connections.

I am pleased that you will also be discussing the justice of climate change, knowing full well that it is small states – so often with so little carbon footprint – which are the greatest victims of its in justice.

The Commonwealth’s 1989 Langkawi Declaration was the model for that of Rio in 1992: we have always been ahead of the curve on climate change, and active in the interests of our most vulnerable members.

Our current focus is on ensuring that they have access to the financing and the technology which will allow them to adapt and mitigate.

I hope that this meeting can add to that momentum, to stave off a threat which for a number of our members (like the Maldives....) is nothing less than existential.

In thanking my colleagues and in wishing you all every possible success in the noble task of upholding the core Commonwealth value that is the rule of law, I have the pleasure of opening this meeting, and trust that it will be a great success.

Good citizen that I am, I shall meanwhile revert to Shakespeare and Twelfth Night, and will endeavour to keep ‘on the windy side of the law’.

Thank you.