caribbean court of justice

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is the Caribbean regional judicial tribunal serving countries of CARICOM. [84], This article is about the judicial institution of the Caribbean Community. This new book bridges the information gap and provides an authoritative guide to the composition, function and administration of this new Court. Caribbean Court of Justice would be better utilized to improve the local courts. In this edition: [21], The President may only serve for one, non-renewable 7-year term or until the age of 72 (whichever is earlier)[20][21] but is allowed to continue in office, if necessary for a further three months in order to deliver a judgment or to do any other thing in proceedings that he or she has heard. In the three years following the CCJ's inauguration, civil appeals petitioned to the court outnumbered criminal appeals by nearly seven to one, with half of the civil appeals coming from appellants the CCJ deemed too poor to pay for the filing costs. By contrast, as expressly provided for in the Agreement establishing the CCJ,[42] the CCJ is willing to sit in any country within its jurisdiction on a case-by-case basis, if doing so is necessary for evidence to be given in person and where video- or teleconferencing technology proves insufficient for the task and where the litigant may not be able to afford to appear before the seat of the court and thus be unable to adequately present his or her own case. The CCJ sits at 134 Henry Street in Port of Spain. Where there is no difference in seniority among the Judges, one of the Judges will simply be selected by the Heads of Government to perform the role of President in the event of a vacancy in Presidency or the inability of the President to perform the functions of office. [51][52] 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. 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. It is a grouping of twenty countries: fifteen Member States and five Associate Members. [20] As one Caribbean lawyer lobbyist[20] (initially an opponent of the CCJ) noted: "What is the "reasonable man" test in the Caribbean? "Caribbean integration – Centrifugal force", "Opposition leader blasts Trinidad and Tobago's ‘illegal and half-way’ move to join CCJ", Dana Seetahal, "CCJ — partial adoption as final court? (Caribbean Court of Justice Press Release) The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) continues to closely monitor the current global situation in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The official inauguration was held in Queen's Hall, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on Saturday 16 April 2005. While normal judges of the CCJ have life tenure until the age of 72, the president of the Court may only serve for one, non-renewable 7-year term. [9][10][11][12], Controversy surrounding the establishment of this court corresponds to two major events that made the Privy Council unpopular in the Caribbean region. 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. [34] As the CARICOM has successfully pushed for visa free access by CARICOM nationals (except Haitians for now) to other member states, no citizen of any country that currently has the JCPC as its final court would need to apply for and exhaust financial resources obtaining a visa to travel to the seat of the CCJ or to any other state where the CCJ may sit. While member states do vote in the selection of the president of the Court, political distance is maintained since it is the RJLSC alone which is responsible for selecting the nominees to the post of president for the member states to vote upon. His passion for advocacy led him to represent the Norman Manley Law School at the American Caribbean Law Clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina and UWI Mona at the Caribbean Court of Justice International Moot Court Competition in Trinidad and Tobago. In fact, the Privy Council has often been willing to accept findings by Caribbean courts on local matters because they recognize that such courts are more familiar with Caribbean matters. [28], In 2005, a broadly identical Agreement was signed between Trinidad and Tobago and the newly established CCJ and RJLSC establishing the seat of the CCJ and Offices of the RJLSC in Trinidad and Tobago[78] as was required under Article III of the Agreement establishing the CCJ itself. It was established with US$100 million from initial contributions of the member states by way of loans from the Caribbean Development Bank. He expressed concern that the new Supreme Court's judges would end up spending as much as 40% of their working time on Privy Council business and was intending to take some pressure off of the Supreme Court judges by drafting in lower tier judges from the Court of Appeal to sit on cases from Commonwealth countries. In its original jurisdiction, the CCJ is a court of first instance which applies rules of international law in respect of the interpretation and application of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas … Originally an Anglophone club, the admission of Dutch-speaking Suriname in 1995, and Créole-speaking Haiti (where French is the official language) in 2002 has somewhat modified the cultural and jurisprudential mix of the community. [21] Removal of a Judge by the RJLSC occurs only after the question of the removal of a Judge has been referred by the RJLSC to a tribunal and the tribunal has subsequently advised that the Judge should be removed for misbehaviour or an inability to carry out the duties of a Judge. Caribbean Court of Justice is situated in East Dry River. General information: info@ccj.org Website feedback: feedback@ccj.org CCJ serves as the final court of appeal for CARICOM members and also handles regional trade disputes. [59], In late 2009, controversy arose over the fact that the CEO[clarification needed] of a company involved in CCJ litigation was also the chairman of the Court's trust fund. Tel: 1-868-623-2CCJ (2225) Fax: 1-868-627-1193. Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony noted that St. Lucia had a provision in its Constitution which was identical to a provision in the Constitution of Dominica which allowed that country to recently join the CCJ. It has unlimited jurisdiction in each member State. "I have my own views and I think it’s almost a natural progression of our constitutional development that we move away from the Privy Council and I think the Caribbean Court of Justice is likely to be the alternative to the Privy Council. The CCJs seat is in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. As a unique feature of international and integration courts. The JCPC functions as a final appellate court in very restricted manner. In 2001, the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, at their 22nd meeting in Nassau, the Bahamas, signed the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC), rebranding the Caribbean Community and Common Market to include the proposed CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). [55] 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. The Caribbean Court of Justice has been designed to be more than a court of last resort for Member States of the Caribbean Community. Many in the Caribbean have embraced the idea that a Caribbean Court of Appeal would enrich regional jurisprudence and is conceivably less expensive to access than the London-based UK Privy Council. [48] This time the PUP blocked passage of the constitutional amendment until the dual citizenship provision was removed; after this was done, the bill passed in February 2010. Established in 2005, it is based in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. [6] 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. This original This new book bridges the information gap and provides an authoritative guide to the composition, function and administration of this new Court. The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) was established in 2001 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The CCJ also serves as the final Court of Appeal for some Member states replacing the United Kingdom’s Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) as the court of last resort in civil and criminal matters. [25] Persons being appointed to the office of Judge (including the President) are supposed to have high moral character, intellectual and analytical ability, integrity, demonstrate sound judgment, and an understanding of people and society. Further noting that St. Lucia's Attorney General had received an advisory opinion from the Court of Appeal to a possible erroneous section that the provision in question had referred to; the Court of Appeal agreed by a 2–1 majority that there was indeed an error in the Constitution. As a result, all judges of the CCJ (unlike judges in the ECJ or the defunct SADC Tribunal) are free to make decisions without having to consider judicial term renewal. The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court is a court for the OECS, including 6 independent states and 3 British Overseas. Belize saw appeals roughly twice per year to the JCPC before switching to the CCJ in 2010[20] and subsequently saw 12 appeals in the four years since the first appeal to the CCJ from Belize in mid 2011. [22], Although there is no ratio or quota for judges based on sex or nationality, most CCJ judges previously sat at a national level or previously taught law for 15 years or more. a state which has executed the agreement establishing the CCJ), a state exercising civil law jurisprudence common to Contracting Parties. Even appointment to the RJLSC itself is done by relatively independent jurists, including the deans of the law school at the. The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) was established in 2005. The birth of the CCJ came after a long and arduous period of planning. [20][36] Given the generally low number of appeals coming from the smaller CARICOM states[7] and sometimes from larger CARICOM states such as Jamaica,[37] in effect the local courts of appeal are the courts of last resort for the majority of CARICOM litigants who cannot afford to take their appeals to the JCPC and must therefore be satisfied with the judgments of the local courts of appeal. Nathan White joined Alexander Ricks as a Counsel in 2019. [17][18], In October 2009, Lord Gifford at a reception in Kingston, Jamaica, again expressed support for the replacement of the Privy Council by the CCJ. The income from the Fund is expected to finance the expenditures of the Court (remuneration of judges and other employees, operation of the court) in perpetuity. Tyrone has 1 job listed on their profile. 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[6][20][34] This combination of lower litigant cost for the CCJ, the Court's willingness to grant in forma pauperis and having a wider field of law to hear appeals on has enabled the CCJ to hear types of cases from the region that the JCPC has never known. The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) critically determines how the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) functions. The Bahamas and Haiti, though full members of the CARICOM, are not yet signatories, and because of Montserrat's status as a British territory, they must await Instruments of Entrustment from the UK in order to ratify. [44][79] The Court itself views itinerant sittings as important to ensuring that the accessibility of itself and justice in general to the people it serves of the Caribbean Community. Unfortunately, however, the arbitral procedure was never used and serious disputes were never settled, thereby causing the integration movement to be hampered. Harry & Bryant Funeral Home in Myers Park was founded more than 130 years ago. The CCJ thus performs similarly to the European Court of Justice, EFTA Court, East African Court of Justice, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, the Andean Court of Justice and the International Court of Justice. Although both courts do allow appeals in forma pauperis, waiving filing fees when they are deemed too burdensome on the individual litigant,[6] the JCPC does so on a more limited basis. It noted however that there was currently a gender imbalance among the judges that should be addressed in future recruitments and that RJLSC could institute a competition complaint filing procedure for unsuccessful applicants hoping to fill any vacancies as judges. [60], In April 2012, the 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. 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