The University of the West Indies (UWI) Open Campus Dominica has emerged the winner in a debate against the Dominica State College (DSC) on the topic ‘The Caribbean Court of Justice is a better council of appeal for Dominica than the Privy Council.’
The debate was held at the Public Service Union building on Thursday evening.
The UWI team, which comprised debaters Abigail Durand and Cornelia Charles, proposed the topic and scored a total of 270 points.
UWI’s first debater, Abigail Durand who won the overall best speaker award, made a forceful case in her presentation, for favoring the CCJ over the Privy Council.
“The CCJ should be our final court of appeal because, one, the Privy Council have publicly supported the formation of the Caribbean Court of Appeal, two, the CCJ allow us as a country to cast aside the perpetuation of colonialism; three, this venture will help unite the Caribbean to strengthen our region,” she argued.
Durand also posited that that the CCJ is a better choice financially and the “CCJ will contribute towards a uniformed jurisprudence for the region by providing legislature that is relevant and unique to the region.”
The opposing DSC team was made up of Jose Thomas and Lyndon Auguiste. They scored a total of 247 points.
First speaker, Thomas, stated in support of the DSC position, “Can we then compare a court that has held water to a court that is barely out of its amniotic sac? Being around for as recently as 2001? Absolutely not! It is wise to firstly observe the operations of the CCJ before making assumptions. The Privy Council is a court of appeal that has served us wonderfully as we say locally never leave whey you haf for what you no see”.
Thomas also argued, “the possibility of influence and bias decision making under the CCJ would take away from its function and therefore cannot be better.”
President of the Bar Association and former Solicitor General, Wynant Adrien-Roberts, was the chief judge and in her critique of the debate, pointed out that the UWI debaters were “very articulate and better presented” and the DSC team did a better job in analyzing the topic, had good reference to ‘local realities’.
Adrien-Roberts also noted that both teams read too much through out the debate.
The debate was judged based on Analysis of Proposition or topic, use of evidence, soundness of argument, organization of material, effectiveness of delivery, summation and team spirit.
The other judges were Dionne Durand and Nigel Lawerence.
Well done ,Our young people are contributing to the education of our nation
Wakeup! winter is over, spring is here,hope your brain is defrosted, if not, put brain in motion before you post. I listened to the debate on D.B.S. thanks!Awake in QNS”.
Why take Behanzin’s format and not give him credit for it?
congrates to uwi students
Where was the nation station, Kairi, and Q95, we so often talk of our young person as being disruptive now they are exhibiting their debating skills and bringing forth their ideas and our radio stations are silent, what a dam shame on our radio stations, we push gabbage smott music all year round now our young people are on display and guess what no show of our radio stations
well I can confirm that I listened to the debate on DBS radio so I’m not to sure what you are talking about.
yes – I listened to it as well.
Good observation VF, too often folks come here and attack without first getting their facts right. Everyone is entitle their own opinion but not to their own facts.
The better question should be, where was he?
Probably it did not get enough promotion, but to impute that it was not carried live is totally erroneous, and begs an apology from the submitter.
U listening to Q95 too much New Yorker, we in Dominica listened to the debate on Kairi and DBS radio.
Q95 is a bashing radio station they are not patriotic at all, power hungry set of people!!!!
Kudos to all involved in this worthy exercise. I am happy to see our young folks spend time on their research and analysis. I am hoping to read of more debates on these very important subject matters. This is so positive. Once again “Congrats”.