CARICOM seeks to recover lost ground on free movement - CCJ President
- Guyana , Trinidad once benefited from real movement
Kaieteur News
February 26, 2007
President of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Justice Michael de la Bastide, believes that personal contact is an important precursor to regional integration and that personal contact is difficult to achieve without the free movement of people within the region.
Justice de la Bastide's comments came on Saturday evening during an address at the gala dinner of the Rotary Club of Georgetown to commemorate ‘World Understanding and Peace Day'.
While seeking to provide a greater understanding of the CCJ and its functions in the context of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), Justice de la Bastide took the opportunity to stress the importance of free movement of people within the region.
He alluded to a point in the region's pre-Independence era when free movement of people within the region was not a goal but a reality.
“It strikes me that on this matter of free movement of people within the Commonwealth Caribbean, we are now seeking to recover ground which was lost after Independence ,” Justice de la Bastide stated.
He stressed that the region has reached a stage where under the Treaty of Chaguaramas and certain protocols subsequently entered into, specified categories of persons have been given the right to seek employment in any member-state.
“But subject to that, the free movement of nationals of member-states within the Community is nothing more than a goal to which member-states have committed themselves,” the CCJ head said.
The CCJ President, a Trinidadian, reminisced that it was the free movement of people in the pre-Independence era that allowed Pat Castagne, a Guyanese by birth, to compose the National Anthem of Trinidad. Castagne was taken to Trinidad as a small child.
Justice de la Bastide also alluded to Kit Nascimento and writer Ian McDonald, both of whom are Trinidad-born and who continue to contribute to Guyana .
The CCJ President also spoke of the contribution of Barbadian, the late Sir Clyde Walcott, who is well known for his contribution to Guyanese cricket both on and off the field, while remaining a hero and an icon in his native Barbados .
Justice de la Bastide stated that economists have advised that it makes good sense to provide for the free movement of the factors of production throughout the single economic space created by the CSME.
“It would seem a great pity if a degree of chauvinism and xenophobia which was unknown before the independence, should prove an obstacle to the free movement of one of these factors, namely people.”
However, he noted that in the wider context of regional integration, there is the unspoken fear that the CSME might, like the ill-fated West Indies Federation , become another over-ambitious project that skidded off “a road paved with good intentions.”
The judge alluded that the CCJ can play a pivotal role in holding the CSME dream together.
“The court has the responsibility to assist by its judgment in transforming the commendable aspirations of the Treaty into reality without sending out shock waves that might threaten the fragile structure of the CSME.”
Ticklish issue
During the address, Justice de la Bastide noted that there could be difficulties, which are likely to arise sooner rather than later, relating to inconsistency between the domestic law of a member-state and the Treaty.
He said that in Guyana , the problem has been made less intractable by the Caribbean Community Act, 2006, which gives the Treaty the force of law in Guyana .
On the other hand, other member-states, including Barbados , Belize , and Antigua and Barbuda , have not enacted similar legislation.
CCJ inactivity
As is the case with newly established courts, business tends to be slow. Justice de la Bastide stated that it is still too early to be concerned over the fact that the CCJ has not yet been called upon to exercise its original jurisdiction, which is to settle disputes between member-states.
“What is of greater concern to me is the possibility that persons with a right of access to the Court may not recognise the circumstances in which that right could be used to their advantage.”
He added that there is a need for greater awareness by the private sectors of what the CCJ has to offer.
The court was first proposed in 1970, but the official inauguration was held in Queen's Hall, Port of Spain , Trinidad and Tobago on Saturday, April 16, 2005.
The first case heard by the CCJ was in August 2005, a case 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 with the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
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.
The CCJ will be the final court of appeal for civil and criminal decisions of the Courts of Appeal of those member-states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) which at present send appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Guyana has two of the six Judges on the CCJ panel in Justice Duke Pollard and Justice Desiree Bernard.