Dear Editor,
The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is celebrating its tenth anniversary, and although only three countries (now four because Dominica joined six weeks ago) a large number of cases were filed and disposed of. The regional court which was inaugurated on April 16, 2005, is doing an excellent job according to a London based barrister, Edward Rooney. The Guyanese-born lawyer who has been following the activities of the regional court and has read all the decisions said that he is very impressed with the judgments/rulings both in its original and appellate jurisdictions.
He made reference to two cases: the Shanique Myrie case in which the court in its original jurisdiction found that the Barbadian immigration authorities had breached the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas when they denied entry to the young Jamaican woman. The court also awarded damages to her. The other case Rooney was impressed with was an appeal from Barbados in which the President of the Court Sir Denis Byron made a scathing attack on Barbadian judges in the System Sales Ltd and Arletta Brown-Oxley case, in which he noted that it took 16 years for the Barbadian court to make a decision.
President Byron said that the inordinate delay has denied the parties their legal right for a fair and early trial. However the comments from the Head of the CCJ were criticized by one of the lawyers in the case, Queen’s Counsel Vernon Smith, who said that the CCJ paid too much emphasis on the delay in delivering judgments, rather than on dealing with the legal issues of the case. He went further and made a rather unfortunate statement when he said that Barbados should have nothing to do with the CCJ.
It is rather unfortunate that so far only four jurisdictions have abolished appeals to the Privy Council and accepted the CCJ as the final appellate court. Dominica has recently joined Guyana, Barbados and Belize. However the CCJ serves all 13 jurisdictions in its original jurisdiction which interprets the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
Statistics show that 98 applications have been filed to date and 88 have been disposed of. It is surprising that 77 appeals have been filed and 62 disposed of. In its original jurisdiction 10 applications were presented and seven disposed of.
I have said over and over that I cannot see the wisdom in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago not abolishing appeals to the Privy Council when these two large countries were in the forefront two decades ago of encouraging countries to join the regional court. Moreso, these two countries gained political independence 52 years ago. St Lucia is expected to join soon and the other OECS countries will soon follow.
Yours faithfully,
Oscar Ramjeet
