Caribbean Court of Justice - History - The CCJ's Appellate Jurisdiction

The CCJ's Appellate Jurisdiction

The birth of the CCJ came after a long, arduous gestation. In March 1970, the Organisation of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Associations (OCCBA) first raised the issue of the need to replace the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the court of last resort for the Commonwealth Caribbean by a regional court of appeal. Again in Jamaica, just a month later, at the VI Commonwealth Caribbean Heads of Government, the heads agreed to take action on relinquishing the Privy Council as the Anglophone Caribbean’s last appeal court and mandated a committee of CARICOM attorneys-general to further explore the question of the establishment of what was then being called a "Caribbean Court of Appeal".

Further to the perceived need for an indigenous court as tribunal of last resort in criminal and civil matters in the Caribbean, other considerations eventually weighed heavily in favour of the creation of the judicial arm of CARICOM. As Duke Pollard, then Director of the Caricom Legislative Drafting Facility, wrote in 2000: "the old Treaty of Chaguaramas provided for arbitration in the event of disputes concerning the interpretation and application of the Treaty. Unfortunately, however, the arbitral procedure was never used and serious disputes were never settled, thereby causing the integration movement to be hampered. Moreover, the rights and obligations created by the CSME are so important and extensive, relating to the establishment of economic enterprises, the provision of professional services, the movement of capital, the acquisition of land for the operation of businesses, that there is a clear need to have a permanent, central, regional institution to authoritatively and definitively pronounce on those rights and corresponding obligations. The Caribbean Court of Justice is intended to be such an authoritative institution."

The official inauguration was held in Queen's Hall, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on Saturday 16 April 2005. The first case heard by the CCJ was in August 2005 and was to settle a 'decade-long' libel court case from Barbados.

The reasons given for the establishment of a supreme appellate court are many and varied, including a perceived regional disenfranchisement from the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Controversy surrounding the establishment of this court corresponds to two major events that made the Privy Council unpopular in the Caribbean region.

• One reason was the refusal of the Privy Council to allow capital punishment for persons convicted of murder (who had spent more than five years pursuing their various appeal options) to be practiced in Caribbean states, even where a majority of the people in the relevant jurisdictions supported the death penalty. In the case of Pratt and Morgan vs. the Attorney General of Jamaica, the Privy Council, in its 1993 ruling, held that persons imprisoned on death row for more than five years should have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
• The second main issue was a case involving the government of Antigua and Barbuda, where the Privy Council handed out a radio licence to a company on behalf of the aforementioned government without its approval or consent. The British-based court has been perceived as having too much power in the Caribbean region.

Several politicians also lamented that the Caribbean nations are the only remaining region of the old British Empire still to rely on the British court system for appeals.

The Jamaica Labour Party resisted the full powers of the CCJ on the basis that it was a hanging court.

In February, 2005, the Privy Council declared that the CCJ-related companion bills passed by the Jamaican Parliament in 2004 were unconstitutional and therefore void. The bills would have established the CCJ as the final court of appeal in Jamaica.

The Privy Council sided with the appellants, including the Jamaican Council for Human Rights, the Jamaica Labour Party and others, ruling that to establish the CCJ as the country's final appeal court, without it being entrenched in the constitution would undermine the protection given to the Jamaican people by Chapter Seven of the Jamaican constitution. The court concluded that the procedure appropriate for an amendment of an entrenched provision—a referendum—should have been followed.

Barbados and Guyana acceded to the CCJ's appellate jurisdiction in 2005, with Belize joining them in June 2010.

It is expected that the two Caribbean states that will have the most difficulty accessing the court will be Suriname which has a Dutch-based legal system, and Haiti which has a French-based legal system. All other member states have British-based legal systems with the CCJ itself being predominantly modeled after the British system.

In late 2009, controversy arose over the fact that the CEO of a company involved in CCJ litigation was also the chairman of the Court's trust fund.

In January 2012, the new People's National Party government of Jamaica stated that it would be moving to have the CCJ serving in both the original and appellate jurisdictions for Jamaica in time for the 50th anniversary of Jamaica's independence in August. The Jamaica Labour Party, now in opposition, stated it has no issue with the government's plan and seems set to support the move despite strident objections in the past. In February, the foreign affairs minister of Jamaica has also called on Trinidad & Tobago to sign on to the court's appellate jurisdiction to mark that country's 50th anniversary of independence.

In April 2012, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar announced in Parliament that it intended to abolish criminal appeals to the Privy Council in favour of the CCJ and would be tabling legislation to that effect. This follows a review of the situation conducted by the government after a commitment given at the last Caricom Heads of Government conference in Suriname in July 2011. Although the announcement had the general support of the Opposition leader Dr Keith Rowley, he expressed disappointment that the government was "only going halfway" by planning to adopt the CCJ for criminal appeals only while retaining the Privy Council for civil matters and cautioned that the move may not be legally possible under the relevant treaties. He said the opposition People's National Movement was fully supportive of adopting the CCJ as a final appeals court on all matters, both civil and criminal. It has been observed however that there is a precedent for the partial abolition of appeals to the Privy Council with Canada ending criminal appeals to the court in 1933 and civil appeals in 1949.

Also in 2012, following the 54th meeting of the OECS Authority, it was agreed that although all OECS members are committed to acceding to the CCJ's appellate jurisdiction as soon as possible the differing constitutional provisions of each member state meant that simultaneous accession was no longer the preferred option. Dominica and St. Kitts & Nevis are the only members which would be able to take steps to accede to the CCJ's appellate jurisdiction during the course of 2012 as they only require a parliamentary majority to join up to the court. Grenada and Antigua & Barbuda would require referenda before being able to accede, while St. Lucia and St. Vincent & the Grenadines would need a parliamentary majority approving accession along with a judicial resolution.