Prof Hamid Ghany

For the sec­ond time in its his­to­ry, the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) has had to deal with a sub­stan­tive ex­po­sure of its in­ter­nal work­ings. Back in 2014, there was pub­lic con­tro­ver­sy be­tween its then Reg­is­trar, Dr Leighton Jack­son, who was on sec­ond­ment from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), and Sir Den­nis By­ron, Chief Jus­tice and Pres­i­dent of the Court.

Last Sun­day and all week, the Ex­press has re­vealed sev­er­al in­ter­nal emails be­tween and among CCJ judges about their mis­giv­ings with­in the court. The Re­gion­al Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (RJLSC) has now been asked to in­ves­ti­gate these mat­ters.

We are here again. Back in 2014, the Ex­press re­port­ed the fol­low­ing:

“Dr Leighton Jack­son was es­cort­ed by se­cu­ri­ty off the CCJ com­pound on May 6, 2014. A let­ter from By­ron to Jack­son on the same date stat­ed, ‘The or­gan­i­sa­tion is of the view that you are in breach of fair­ness to the Pres­i­dent and Hu­man Re­sources Man­ag­er and that you have breached your fi­deli­ty to the court and un­der­mined any trust and con­fi­dence that the or­gan­i­sa­tion may have had in you.’” (Ex­press, Ju­ly 19, 2014).

In the same ar­ti­cle, the fol­low­ing was re­port­ed:

“Jack­son said he held the act­ing Reg­is­trar post from Ju­ly 18, 2013 to May 6, 2014, and dur­ing that pe­ri­od was nev­er in­vit­ed to ful­fil his role as sec­re­tary to the RJLSC. He said he was al­so nev­er con­sult­ed about any re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise. ‘There seems to be an in­tol­er­ance of op­pos­ing views at the CCJ, and I can­not ex­ist in that’, he said.”

In a press re­lease dat­ed Ju­ly 25th, 2014, Deputy Chair of the RJLSC, Lloyd Bar­nett, re­sist­ed pub­lic state­ments made by Jack­son. Bar­nett said: “No cre­dence should there­fore be at­tached to the warn­ings by Dr Jack­son of prob­lems re­lat­ing to the fi­nan­cial or oth­er sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the Court.”

Mean­while, in the Mona Law Re­port (2015) Vol­ume 3, a re­port on Jack­son at the UWI Re­search Days pro­gramme on Feb­ru­ary 10, 2015 stat­ed as fol­lows:

“The pre­sen­ta­tion ex­am­ined the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the CCJ as the high­est court for Com­mon­wealth Caribbean States. Dr Jack­son ar­gued that a high court is part of the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance of a state and that the CCJ is a for­eign in­sti­tu­tion which does not take us much fur­ther than the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil in achiev­ing good gov­er­nance. He fur­ther em­pha­sised that the val­ues un­der­ly­ing the law on which ad­ju­di­ca­tion is made must be de­cid­ed by Ja­maicans for Ja­maicans.” (p. 19).

The is­sues of trust and ac­count­abil­i­ty have been at the heart of the CCJ is­sue ever since the court was first of­fered as an ap­pel­late sub­sti­tute for the Privy Coun­cil in 2005. The lat­est con­tro­ver­sy rais­es trust and ac­count­abil­i­ty is­sues once again.

The is­sue of trust goes be­yond the ques­tion of re­la­tions be­tween judges. It al­so in­volves how the Caribbean pub­lic per­ceives the court. The Reg­is­trar who suc­ceed­ed Jack­son in 2014 was Jacque­line Gra­ham, who re­tired from the court in 2022.

Ac­cord­ing to the Reg­is­trar and Chief Mar­shall of the CCJ, Mrs Gabrielle Fi­garo Jones, in the 2022-2023 An­nu­al Re­port:

“As the new Reg­is­trar and Chief Mar­shall, I must ex­tend my ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the for­mer of­fice hold­er, the Hon. Mme Jus­tice Jacque­line Josi­ah-Gra­ham, who ded­i­cat­ed eight years to the Court. Her con­tri­bu­tion is recog­nised and sin­cere­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed. I al­so thank Mrs Gizel Thomas-Roberts, Deputy Reg­is­trar and Mar­shall, who act­ed as Reg­is­trar and Chief Mar­shall from Sep­tem­ber 2022 to Feb­ru­ary 2023 dur­ing the pe­ri­od of tran­si­tion.” (CCJ An­nu­al Re­port 2022-2023, p. 25).

Gizel Thomas-Roberts pre­vi­ous­ly con­test­ed the To­ba­go East seat in the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tions in T&T as the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment can­di­date and lost to Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP), 7,469 to 5,523 (See Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion 2010 Gen­er­al Elec­tion Re­port, p. 293). Po­lit­i­cal trust is what will make ac­cep­tance of the CCJ hap­pen. The RJLSC is free to hire com­pe­tent per­sons to hold se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tive po­si­tions in the court. How­ev­er, once it hires po­lit­i­cal ac­tivists/can­di­dates in­to the court ad­min­is­tra­tion, re­gard­less of which ter­ri­to­ry staff come from, the RJLSC can­not ex­pect unan­i­mous ac­cep­tance of the court, as there will be dis­trust by those op­posed to the po­lit­i­cal par­ties of those ac­tivists/can­di­dates.

Last Thurs­day, the Guardian re­port­ed that Heads of Ju­di­cia­ry from Bar­ba­dos, The Ba­hamas, Be­lize, Guyana, Ja­maica and T&T as well as the East­ern Caribbean Supreme Court is­sued a state­ment of con­fi­dence in the court.

With these 2026 rev­e­la­tions of in­fight­ing be­tween CCJ judges and their Chief Jus­tice, will pub­lic con­fi­dence in both the orig­i­nal ju­ris­dic­tion (which ap­plies to all Cari­com states) and the ap­pel­late ju­ris­dic­tion, which ap­plies to Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca, Guyana and St Lu­cia be di­min­ished?

Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI. He was se­lect­ed by the THA to guide the dis­cus­sions on To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.