Jamaica’s reparations petition ‘enormously strong,’ says Bert Samuels

Jamaican attorney Bert Samuels says the country has an “enormously strong” case for reparatory justice following the filing of a petition to King Charles III over Britain’s role in the enslavement of Africans in Jamaica.

Samuels, deputy chairman of the National Council on Reparations, was among a group of Jamaican and United Kingdom lawyers who helped formulate the petition, which was filed with the King in London on Monday.

“The petition is enormously strong because the questions that we are raising are backed by historical fact… Professor Verene Shepherd has provided the evidence. So it's a mix between history and law,” Samuels said.

According to Samuels, the petition has undergone scrutiny from several attorneys.

“At least eight lawyers have looked at this matter, and we think that the strength of it is the quality of lawyering that has gone into the petition,” he said.

Samuels also rejected criticism of the petition from Lord Sumption, a former judge of the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court who also sat on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

“I think it is grossly inappropriate for any lawyer or judge who has not read the petition to comment on the petition. Why didn't he check with us to hear our view and distill our view and give his informed opinion? I think his bias has outweighed his common sense,” Samuels said.

The attorney, who describes himself as a Pan-Africanist lawyer, also argued that the timing of the petition was significant, pointing to milestones in the reparations movement and the anniversary of the Zong massacre.

“Let us remember that in 2001, in Durban, there was a classification of transatlantic slavery as a crime against humanity…And then let us go further now to 2009, when Jamaica decided to form a reparation council, the first Caribbean territory that did that, and then move to 2015, where the parliament [gave] bipartisan support for reparation, and then to March 2026, when Ghana [and the United Nations] said that transatlantic chattel slavery is the worst crime against humanity known to humans… One day after the departure of the Zong… before the atrocity where 140 of us were thrown overboard, the timing was great. The 7th of September 2026 will go down in history as the best time for reparatory justice.”

Samuels also responded to criticism over the decision to send a delegation led by Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Minister Olivia Grange to London to file the petition.

He said the trip allowed the delegation to engage with the Jamaican diaspora in Britain and to hold discussions related to Jamaican artifacts held by the British Museum.

“There is a huge Diaspora in England [with] Jamaicans thirsty to see that we are giving them the support and they give us the support. Secondly, we also came to go to the British Museum [where] we had to interface with those who are hosting and holding artefacts that we think belong to us. I don't think that they would take us seriously if we took up the phone to call and ask about our artefacts. We are showing them how serious we are to come here..”

Samuels urged Jamaicans to support the petition and compared the delegation’s actions to those of National Hero Paul Bogle, who famously walked from Stony Gut to Spanish Town in 1865 to raise the grievances of the people of St. Thomas with Governor Edward Eyre.

“Our minister is walking in the shoe of Paul Bogle. Paul Bogle walked with a petition from Stony Gut, 45 miles to Spanish Town to petition Governor Eyre. Was he begging? So if we honour Paul Bogle, we have to honour this process.”