Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Re­gion­al cit­i­zens should feel a sense of pride in the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) de­spite the cur­rent con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the Court, since there is no in­sti­tu­tion made by man that will not be sub­ject to some con­tro­ver­sy or chal­lenge from time to time, says Bar­ba­dos High Com­mis­sion­er to Cari­com David Comis­siong.

Comis­siong, who is al­so Bar­ba­dos High Com­mis­sion­er to Trinidad and To­ba­go, spoke fol­low­ing the con­tro­ver­sy con­cern­ing in­ter­nal is­sues at the Court in­volv­ing the lead­er­ship of CCJ head Jus­tice Win­ston An­der­son. The Re­gion­al Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (RJLSC) has in­struct­ed that the is­sue be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Comis­siong said the CCJ has been dom­i­nat­ing re­gion­al news head­lines for all the wrong rea­sons.

“The un­for­tu­nate re­al­i­ty is that most of our peo­ple don’t re­al­ly know much about the CCJ, and there­fore may eas­i­ly be mis­led in­to draw­ing false, neg­a­tive con­clu­sions about this crit­i­cal Cari­com in­sti­tu­tion,” he said.

He de­tailed the Court’s back­ground and man­date, not­ing, among oth­er points, the Court’s in­de­pen­dent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Comis­siong said the judges are all ap­point­ed by the broad-based, non-po­lit­i­cal RJLSC, com­pris­ing se­lectees or rep­re­sen­ta­tives of many en­ti­ties, rang­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Law Fac­ul­ty to the pri­vate sec­tor bar as­so­ci­a­tions of Cari­com’s na­tions.

He said many Cari­com in­sti­tu­tions are tru­ly out­stand­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions, but if chal­lenged to se­lect the very best and most ex­cel­lent in­sti­tu­tion, he would have to go with the CCJ.

“The CCJ is one of the great­est ac­com­plish­ments of our re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion move­ment. It’s an achieve­ment that we col­lec­tive­ly ac­com­plished through the ap­pli­ca­tion of our own ini­tia­tive and na­tive in­tel­lect, and that our cit­i­zens/tax­pay­ers have in­de­pen­dent­ly un­der­writ­ten and fi­nan­cial­ly sup­port­ed. For us not to have con­fi­dence in the CCJ would be tan­ta­mount to us not hav­ing con­fi­dence in our­selves,” he said.