Excerpt from a speech 2

This is taken from Justice Ivor Archie's speech at the opening of the 2009/2010 law term:

I am therefore not sure what it is that is not working that we are trying to fix.

We are talking about our constitution! It is supposed to be a distillation of all the values we hold dear, an expression of our hopes and aspirations for the society we want to create for the future.

It therefore behooves us all to think very carefully about this exercise and voice our opinions. We should not abdicate that duty by leaving the ‘heavy-lifting’ to others.

Any constitution that is finally adopted must be the product of our collective thought and deliberation and more importantly an expression of our collective will. Our thoughts may be garnered by consultation but only if there is active participation from all sectors of our society.

In the end, we will have to consider what is the best mechanism in our democratic society for determining the will of the people. There is a view that it is best expressed directly in a vote.

No wonder words like these caused JJ to look 'concerned'.