Jamaican officials will travel to the UK in September to formally lodge an unprecedented petition with King Charles to seek legal guidance on their slavery reparations claim from Britain, the country’s government announced on Tuesday. The delegation, led by Culture Minister Olivia Grange, is scheduled to arrive on 6 September, a date chosen for its historical significance.
Petition Seeks Privy Council Ruling on Legality of Slave Trade
The petition, first announced in June last year, asks King Charles to use his authority to request legal advice from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the final court of appeal for UK overseas territories and some Commonwealth countries. Specifically, it seeks a ruling on whether the forced transport of Africans to Jamaica was lawful, if it constituted a crime against humanity, and whether Britain is obligated to provide restitution for slavery and its enduring consequences.
Grange stated that the request is being made to King Charles "in his capacity as head of state of Jamaica and from whom we expect protection," adding that the country has the full support of the Caribbean Community (Caricom). She described 6 September as "an historic day," noting that on that date in 1781, the Zong slave ship departed West Africa for Jamaica with 442 enslaved Africans. During the journey, the captain threw 140 enslaved Africans overboard to claim insurance for loss of cargo. The ship eventually arrived in Black River on 21 December 1781.
Historical Context: Compensation and Aftermath
Grange highlighted that at emancipation in 1834, British planters were compensated for the loss of their "so-called 'property'," with England offering £20 million in compensation through a loan that was finally settled in 2015. She added that newly emancipated Africans were forced to provide years of additional free labour to the planters, "thereby literally paying their enslavers for their freedom." The minister also noted that the government of Jamaica has set an example with internal reparations to the country’s Rastafarian community through an apology and land transfer.
The announcement follows the unveiling of a new manifesto from the Caribbean Community Reparations Commission outlining the "moral, ethical and legal case for reparations" for the enslavement of African people.
Legal Team and International Support
Laleta Davis Mattis, chair of Jamaica’s National Council on Reparations (NCR), described the filing of the petition as a "significant milestone in our long pursuit of reparatory justice." She credited the legal sub-committee, chaired by attorney-at-law Bert Samuels, and a team of UK lawyers, particularly Frank Phipps KC, whose legal acuity in proposing this route "gave shape to the strategy we have now brought to fruition."
Deputy chair of the National Reparations Council, Bert Samuels, said that Jamaica’s case is now backed by the UN’s 25 March landmark resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. Samuels will be part of a team of lawyers, headed by Jamaica’s Attorney General Derrick McKoy, who will argue before the Privy Council on behalf of the formerly enslaved people and their descendants.
Resolute Pursuit of Justice
Samuels emphasised the country's resolve, even after the UK insisted it will not pay slavery reparations and abstained from the UN vote, which he described as a shameful act. "We have learned from the 300-year struggle for freedom itself, which seemed unattainable when we were enslaved," he said. He added that if there is push-back from the Privy Council, there would be an international outcry: "The international avalanche of support for freedom and justice of oppressed people, of Jews who were oppressed, of the Japanese who were oppressed, of other persons in minorities in Canada and New Zealand, all those minorities have come together and have sought justice for themselves. Let us hear [the Privy Council] say no, and then we will take to the streets."
