A ten-member team is to represent Guyana at a seminar in Trinidad and Tobago next week on the establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
The CCJ Project Unit in the CARICOM Secretariat will facilitate the seminar, which is being held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Port-of-Spain. But one of the seminar sessions will be held at the building, which the Trinidad and Tobago government has made available as the temporary seat of the court.
The main speakers at the opening session and the one to be held at the seat of the court are Trinidad and Tobago Attorney-General, Glenda Morean and CARICOM Secretary-General, Edwin Carrington. These sessions will be open to the media.
The members of the Guyana team are Justice of Appeal, Nandram Kissoon; Chief Magistrate (ag), Juliet Holder-Allen; Trade Ministry Permanent Secretary, Sonia Roopnauth; Director (ag) of the Department of the Americas, Charlene Phoenix; Supreme Court Registrar, Sita Ramlall; Assistant Commissioner of Police (Law Enforcement) Leon Trim; Deputy Chief Immigration Officer, Kamrul Hassan; Legal Advisor, Guyana Revenue Authority, Joy Persaud; Foreign Service Officer, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bevon McDonald; and State Counsel, Attorney-General's Chambers, Nareshwar Harnanan.
CARICOM Heads gave the establishment of the CCJ a major boost when they agreed at their meeting in Georgetown this month to set up a US$100 million trust fund, the income from which will fund the court's activities.
The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) will raise the US$100 million on the capital market, which the member countries will repay. President Bharrat Jagdeo told a press conference on Thursday that Guyana's contribution will be between US$7 million to US$8 million and will be in the form of a loan from the CDB to the Guyana government.
Attorney-General Doodnauth Singh SC told Stabroek News on Thursday that President Jagdeo would soon ratify the agreement setting up the court. St Lucia was the first government to ratify the agreement. However, Singh said that work was still to begin on the legislation that would allow the CCJ to replace the Court of Appeal as the country's final court and provide for Guyana to subscribe to the ourt's original jurisdiction relating to the interpretation of the CARICOM founding treaty.
Sheldon McDonald, head of the CCJ Project Unit told Stabroek News on Thursday that the seminar was the last of four being held for the states that will be members of the court. The other member countries that will be participating at the seminar are Suriname, and Trinidad. However, he said Haiti, which was unable to attend the seminar in Jamaica has been invited. The other participants at the Jamaica seminar were Jamaica, the Bahamas and Belize. Two other seminars accommodated the Eastern Caribbean states which were divided into the Leeward and Windward islands.
McDonald, himself a lawyer, explained that the participants would be exposed to a paper prepared by Chief Justice Carl Singh which he presented at the seminar in St Kitts that addresses the experience of the region in the establishment of regional tribunals. Another by Carrington will look at the contemporary steps to establish such a tribunal.
McDonald said too that the seminar participants are to be exposed to presentations by the Secretariat's legal consultant, Duke Pollard and Norman Manley Law School principal, Keith Sobion SC, as well as papers on the CCJ's role in the Single Market and in Dispute Settlement.
The latter will take a comparative look at tribunals such as those set up by the Economic Community of West African States, the European Court of Justice and the International Court of Justice.
McDonald said that Sobion's presentation would highlight the opportunities that would open up for the region's legal practitioners as a result of the original jurisdiction of the CCJ.
These opportunities will be in fields such as international environmental law, international trade and economic law and the international law of the sea.
There are other opportunities he said that will arise from the need to develop a coherent approach as a result of the marriage of the Common Law and Civil Law traditions arising from Haiti's and Suriname's membership of the court.