Governance structure of the Cayman Islands

In the past few months Cayman has for all practical purposes permanently lost a number of senior police officers and now two judges. Whatever the outcome in law, the careers of those persons in the Cayman Islands are effectively over.

What is disturbing is the continuing culture of denial that prevails. It is naïve to think that these events are aberrations and that there is nothing wrong with the structure of our government and its governance. We have clear evidence that there are serious flaws in both the structure and execution of vital parts of our government. And the parts under scrutiny, the judiciary and the police, are those where the lines of responsibility run not to the elected politicians but to the office of the Governor and the UK Government where there is effectively no accountability to the people of the Islands.

We deserve better and should therefore press hard for a system under which the appointment and oversight of the police and the judiciary are transparent and effective and do not depend on an outdated and failed system of colonial paternalism that relies for its effectiveness on the activism of any particular Governor.