Guyana Chronicle
May 20, 2001

WITHIN the next six weeks, the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) will meet for their 22nd annual Summit in The Bahamas.

One very important agenda issue will, we expect, be the specific arrangements to be concluded for the establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

Since the CCJ is to have original jurisdisction on the interpretation of the substantially revised CARICOM Treaty in the operations of the Single Market and Economy (SCME), no member country that is part of the SCME should continue delaying the arrangements to make the CCJ a reality.

It has been repeatedly stated that there cannot be an SCME without the CCJ and, logically, no country can access membership of the SCME without being a party to the original jurisdiction of the CCJ.

Those in and out of government, therefore, who continue to confuse participation in the CCJ with the right to retain access to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, are engaging in the politics of deception.

Fundamental constitutional changes will have to be made to make it possible, for example, for countries of the OECS sub-region to terminate access to the Privy Council as their appellate court of last resort.

But this is not a problem facing any of the initial four members identified for the inauguration of the CCJ by - say, 2002? The four are: Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. We expect that the parliamentary opposition in all of these countries will give their support to their respective government for the CCJ to come on board.

Two to Sign

Two of the countries yet to sign on to the inter-governmental agreement on the CCJ, as it relates to original jurisdiction on interpretation of the CARICOM Treaty, are Dominica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. They will be expected to do so at the forthcoming CARICOM Summit in The Bahamas.

As the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Percival Patterson, has observed in urging national support for the CCJ, "the professional integrity, impartiality and independence of the judges of the Court and members of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission are buttressed by the Protocol and Privileges and Immunity of the Court..."

International funding of the CCJ, in the vicinity of some US$20M for the first five years of operation, is being negotiated, with a special arrangement for the Caribbean Development Bank to administer its finances.

To continue to question, as some are doing, the independence of the CCJ because the heads of government will have the right to appoint the President of the court, and then based only on the recommendation of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission, is simply wrong and unjustified.

We look forward to learning of the specific arrangements being pursued to make the CCJ a reality.