History of the CCJ

DPI, Guyana, Thursday, May 9, 2019

We have been hearing a lot about the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as it has been deemed as the destination for the ruling of the December 21, 2018 vote in the National Assembly; but what is the CCJ?

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) was established in 2005 and is located in Trinidad’s capital city; Port-of-Spain. It is the final Court of Appeal on civil and criminal matters for the CARICOM Members States, namely Barbados, Belize, Dominica and Guyana.

Barbados and Guyana acceded to the CCJ’s appellate jurisdiction in 2005, with Belize joining them in June 2010, and Dominica in March 2015. In 2015, the House of Representatives voted for Jamaica to institute the CCJ as its final appellate court. Other CARICOM states are currently putting measures in place towards making the CCJ their final appellate court.

The establishment of the CCJ came after, 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 in March 1970. The matter was then raised again a month later in Jamaica, in April 1970, at the Sixth Commonwealth Caribbean Heads of Government. The Jamaican delegation submitted a proposal on setting up a regional Court of Appeal, and the heads further agreed to take action on relinquishing the Privy Council as the Anglophone Caribbean’s final appellate court. The need for a regional court, as a tribunal of last resort in civil and criminal cases, and other factors, eventually led to the strong support for the creation of a judicial arm of the CARICOM.

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 and was to settle a libel court case from Barbados.

The court also settles disputes between the CARICOM Member States concerning the interpretation and application of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (the agreement that established the Caribbean Community and Common Market).

Since 2005, Guyana has had two judges preside over matters heard by the CCJ. They were Justice Duke Pollard, who commenced his tenure in 2010 and resigned in 2015, after which he became a Professor of Law at the University of Guyana.

Honourable Désirée Bernard served the court from 2005-2014. In 1980, she was Guyana’s first female judge of the High Court and Justice of Appeal of the Supreme Court in 1992. In 2014, she was appointed to the Bermuda Court of Appeal.

The CCJ is currently presided over by seven judges, including the President of the Court, Justice Adrian Saunders, Justice Jacob Wit, Justice David Hayton, Justice Winston Anderson, Justice Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, Justice Denys Barrow and Justice Andrew Burgess.