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Out­go­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has called on Trinidad and To­ba­go to “com­plete its in­de­pen­dence” by sev­er­ing ties with the Unit­ed King­dom’s Privy Coun­cil and adopt­ing the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) as the na­tion’s fi­nal court of ap­peal.

“It is un­just, it is dis­grace­ful that they would dis­re­gard our wider na­tion­al in­ter­est, put a fee on us and tell us while you have to come to us to have our law lords tell you what is right and wrong, you have to pay for a visa to come and do that.”

Row­ley’s thoughts on the con­tro­ver­sial mat­ter were shared dur­ing his fi­nal ad­dress to Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) sup­port­ers yes­ter­day dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal ral­ly at Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, where the par­ty pre­sent­ed all 41 can­di­dates. It was the first time he spoke about the Unit­ed King­dom gov­ern­ment’s sud­den im­po­si­tion of visa re­quire­ments on Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens, a move that has sparked wide­spread de­bate and con­cern.