Will CCJ hopes of Bar Association President join forgotten recommendations?

Last week’s issue of The STAR Businessweek spotlighted the newly elected president of the Bar Association, Ms. Renee St. Rose. A practising attorney for 17 years, she identified among her goals that Saint Lucia move from the Privy Council to the Caribbean Court of Justice as the final court of appeal. Pin-pointing the financial aspect of the Privy Council, as well as the distance involved, she considers it important that this nation makes the change. Saint Lucia’s Court of Appeal, she said, determines hundreds of cases a year yet only a fraction end up at the Privy Council. As to the fear that the CCJ’s judges can be influenced by politics, she insists that the organisation is independent. 

Dominica, Guyana, Belize and Barbados are the only countries that have adopted the CCJ, established in 2001, as their court of last resort. St. Rose’s call for change is not new. In 2011 the Constitutional Reform Commission, led by Justice Suzie d’Auvergne, addressed the issue. The Commission rejected the notion that the region had not produced qualified jurists to perform on an appellate court. The Commission noted in its report that the Privy Council approved of many decisions by the Court of Appeal. The report recognized that the method of appointing judges to the CCJ was almost identical to the system employed by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. 

Said the d’Auvergne report: “The Commission noted that with the exception of the selection of the Chief Justice of the CCJ, governments of the region played no role whatsoever in the appointment and selection of judges. The Commission acknowledged that this was peculiar to the court and unique in the world.”  

More importantly, the support for the CCJ is founded on the belief that breaking ties with the Privy Council is an important step in completing Saint Lucia’s journey of Independence, the report observed. “The Commission considered the mandate entrusted to it by the Parliament of Saint Lucia, and agreed that Saint Lucia had reached a stage in its development where it could take full ownership and responsibility for its judicial policy and affairs,” the report states.

Additionally: “The Commission was convinced that a commitment needed to be made to complete Saint Lucia’s growth as a civilization in its own right, and that the umbilical ties to the former colonial motherland needed to be broken. The Commission regarded it as incompatible with the status of independence that the interpretation of Saint Lucia’s laws should be done for it by a foreign power, on foreign soil.”

In a July 2018 interview with the Jamaica Observer, Prime Minister Allen Chastanet said that although the CCJ was a critical issue, it was not a priority for his government. Turning around the economy and dealing with unemployment, Chastanet said, consumed his government’s time. Earlier this week Justice Minister Hermangild Francis said there has been no formal discussion on this matter. However, it is his view that Saint Lucia should adopt the Trinidad and Tobago-based court. “I am all for the CCJ,” he said. “I think our judges have demonstrated their ability to dispense justice. To go to the Privy Council takes too long and it’s too expensive. With our own court in the Caribbean we’ll be able to dispense justice more quickly.” 

Francis said that early in 2020 cabinet will solicit a collective decision on the way forward. In 2018, referendums held in Antigua and Grenada on whether to adopt the CCJ resulted in overall negative votes. In 2013, the Court of Appeal ruled that a referendum was not needed in Saint Lucia.