The continuing lack of will to embrace the opportunities and possibilities of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is one of the longest standing embarrassments on the local legislative and political agenda. The history of this continuing lapse began in 2001, when Caribbean heads of government signed the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, the document which sought to create the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), an attempt to revamp the economic regional integration process. As part of the proposals of the CSME, the region would turn away from extra-regional judicial authorities such as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and embrace a higher appellate court of its own, the CCJ.
The Caribbean Court of Justice was formally established in February, as part of that charter and by February 2003, the total number of signatories supporting the regional judicial tribunal had reached 12. The agreement came into force in July 2003 and the CCJ itself was inaugurated in its new headquarters in April 2005 in Port-of-Spain. The long road to judicial independence had, apparently, come to a satisfactory conclusion, but all was not well among the individual nations of the Caribbean and to date, only Barbados, Belize and Guyana have accepted the CCJ as a court of last resort, replacing the authority of the Privy Council. In one of those curious turns of the absurd that plague regional politics, Trinidad and Tobago, which offers significant support to the CCJ as well as acting as the headquarters for the appellate court, still adamantly relies on the Privy Council for its final legal decisions.
Sir Shridath Ramphal, first speaker at the Distinguished Jurist Lecture series presented by the Trinidad and Tobago Judicial Education Institute expressed shame at this state of affairs, and surprise that it was Caribbean countries that should be the reason for the retention of the Privy Council's jurisdiction in the region. More important than Sir Shridath's disappointment is his timely warning that the "loss of the CCJ will almost certainly frustrate progress on a single market and economy." Also likely to collapse into shards of well intentioned rubble are the hopeful ambitions of Grande Anse and the mission of economic integration that was meant to be undertaken in the wake of that groundbreaking Treaty of Chaguaramas.
The concerns of the former Commonwealth Secretary-General are sound, sincere and, given his breadth of experience, more than a little chilling. In Sir Shridath's view, the Caribbean Court of Justice is not simply a declaration of judicial independence from our colonial past and a key element of the successful implementation of the CSME, it is a key legislative element in securing independence from political influence and control. A successful and fully supported CCJ would have the authority of the Privy Council within the region while rising above the territorial restraints and prejudices of a national or sub-regional court. The Caribbean Court of Justice, then, can and should be as robust and as empowered as the region has the will to make it and that will has been lacking to a worrying degree.
At the 19th Caricom Heads of Government meeting, three years before the Treaty of Chaguaramas was signed into effect, this country promised that it would host the CCJ as part of a commitment to embrace the regional appellate court as its court of final appeal. Caricom took us at our word and endorsed this country's proposal to be the host nation for the regional court. On Friday, Sir Shridath Ramphal called us on that promise, suggesting that it was time to fulfil the obligation that we gave to the region to support the CCJ not just as a host nation but as an integral part of our legislation and constitution.
The esteemed Queen's Counsel is, of course, quite right to offer a stern, commonsense warning about the possible consequences of continuing to ignore the potential of the CCJ. A decade after choosing legislative independence, the Caribbean is still to fully embrace either the critical opportunities or the significant destiny of that decision.