Jamaica takes its case for reparations for Britain's role in slavery to King Charles III

Jamaica is taking its campaign for Britain to pay reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade to King Charles III, seeking a legal ruling on the UK’s responsibility for slavery and its lasting impact.

On Monday, Jamaica will petition the king to refer questions about slavery and reparations to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the highest court for former British colonies that retain links to the UK legal system.

Although the petition is formally addressed to Charles, he has no personal role in deciding whether it is referred to the committee. He is expected to act on the advice of the British government.

The filing coincides with the anniversary of the 1781 departure of the Liverpool-registered Zong from West Africa with 442 enslaved Africans aboard. When water supplies ran low during the voyage to Jamaica, the crew threw 132 men, women and children overboard, calculating that an insurance claim for the deaths would be more profitable than selling the weakened captives.

Zong massacre fuelled abolition campaign

News of the Zong massacre helped strengthen the campaign to abolish slavery in the British Empire. Britain ended the slave trade in 1807, but slavery itself was not outlawed until August 1, 1834.

“In relation to the wrongs that were done, we want answers,” Jamaican Culture Minister Olivia Grange told The Associated Press on Sunday before a church service in south London, the first of several events planned around the filing.

“Once we get those answers, then our attorneys, our lawyers, will determine what the next move is,” she said.

Jamaica is among the leading countries campaigning for Britain and other European nations to apologise for their role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and provide reparations for both slavery itself and its continuing effects on descendants.

Charles has acknowledged slavery’s historic wrongs

Although Charles has stopped short of endorsing reparations, he has repeatedly spoken about the need to confront the historic wrongs of slavery.

“The appalling atrocity of the slave trade, and the unimaginable suffering it caused, left an indelible stain on the history of our world,” Charles, then Prince of Wales, said during a 2018 speech in Ghana.

The British government, while acknowledging that slavery was “abhorrent”, has rejected calls for an apology or reparations.

The UK also abstained when the UN General Assembly in March adopted a resolution supporting reparations as a “concrete step” towards addressing the legacy of slavery.

British representative James Kariuki told the UN that the UK supported the legal principle that events should be judged according to the law applicable at the time they occurred.

“There is equally no duty to provide reparation for historical acts that were not, at the time those acts were committed, violations of international law,” he said.

Jamaica takes political campaign to courts

Grange said the petition seeks to take the reparations campaign from the political arena into the legal realm.

The petition asks the Judicial Committee to consider three questions: whether the forced transportation and enslavement of Africans in Jamaica violated English common law; whether those acts constituted crimes against humanity for which the UK bears responsibility; and whether Britain has an obligation to provide a remedy to Jamaicans for the forced transportation and enslavement of their ancestors.

Legal bid could bolster push for Jamaican republic

Craig Prescott, a constitutional law and monarchy expert at Royal Holloway, University of London, described the move as “quite clever”, saying it uses an obscure constitutional procedure to address a major issue in Jamaican society.

The right to petition the Crown over grievances concerning the administration of justice dates back to the Norman Conquest of 1066, when the monarch was regarded as the “fountain of justice throughout his Dominions”, according to the Judicial Committee.

Jamaica’s petition relies on an 1833 law that established the committee as the highest court for civil and criminal appeals across the British Empire. After the Empire evolved into the Commonwealth of independent nations following World War II, the committee retained that role for countries that maintained legal links with Britain.

Prescott expects the petition to be referred to the Judicial Committee, where a panel of UK Supreme Court justices would consider it.

However, he said the justices are generally cautious about granting such petitions because they bypass standard legal procedures.

“I think, at the very least, the board will look at this with a skeptical eye, not because of questions of whether slavery is wrong or right or otherwise, but just this is a very peculiar legal procedure that is sort of just one on the statute books that rears its head from time to time,” he said.

Even a rejection could strengthen Jamaica’s campaign to become a republic.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness has announced plans to end the country’s constitutional ties with the British Crown and establish Jamaica as a republic.

If the Privy Council rejects the petition while acting in the king’s name, it could highlight the differences between Britain and Jamaica, Prescott said.

“It does raise the question of why have a head of state who really does not share the positions that are widely held in Jamaica,” he said.

“If those residual links (to Britain) don’t deliver an answer that is what they’re looking for in Jamaica, then you might be looking at severing those links.”