CARICOM's Barrow calls for haste on CCJ adoption

Prime Minister of Belize Dean Barrow has called for all CARICOM countries to hasten efforts to fully adopt the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as their final appellate court.

Prime Minister Barrow, who was guest speaker at the 2012 graduation ceremony of the Norman Law School at the University of the West Indies yesterday evening, says the integrity of the court and its judges cannot be questioned.

According to the Belizean head of Government, although the CCJ remains undersubscribed, the regional court has, over its 11 years of existence, handed down judgements of the highest quality. He maintains that the process for appointing judges to the court is robust and impartial and that it would be spurious to believe that politicians could influence the decisions of the court.

The Barrow administration fully adopted the CCJ in 2010, becoming the third CARICOM nation to have the court entrenched as its final court of appeal. The other two are Guyana and Barbados.

Jamaica has established the CCJ in its original jurisdiction to deal with trade matters. The current Portia Simpson Miller administration has placed legislation before Parliament to have the court established in the island’s appellate jurisdiction.