DEREK ACHONG
Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard, SC, has claimed that a polarising move, to replace the United Kingdom-based Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the country’s final appellate court, would only become a reality with public support.
Gaspard added his voice to the controversial debate as he addressed a special joint sitting of the local Supreme Court and the CCJ to commemorate the life of former chief justice and inaugural CCJ president Michael de la Bastide at the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain, yesterday morning.
Gaspard said: “In the context of selling, I use that word loosely, the idea of the CCJ, we must find a way to get the man on the ground to feel he has a stake in the CCJ.
“If we preoccupy ourselves with the esoteric and perhaps abstruse notions concerning the philosophical rationale for the existence of the CCJ as our final court of appeal, without making the delivery of justice more wholesome, we may be engaging in parody,” he added.
Gaspard revealed that he was initially sceptical of the CCJ when it was first touted when he was a law student.
However, he admitted that his position evolved when it was eventually established in 2005.
“Suffice to say, as I sought to delve deeper on how the court would have been set up, how the judges were to be appointed and how the judges may be insulated from executive overreach if not excess, I became more and more convinced that the issue of adopting the CCJ as our final court of appeal might be necessary in completing, on the face of it, what would have transpired in T&T in 1962 (Independence),” he said.
While Attorney General Reginald Armour, SC, and Law Association of T&T (LATT) president Lynette Seebaran-Suite renewed their calls for the long-touted move to take place in tribute to de la Bastide, who was a strong proponent of the regional court, Gaspard suggested that steps to improve public trust and confidence in the local criminal justice system would be more apt.
“Respectfully though,I would suggest the greatest tribute we can pay to the legal icon is to ameliorate the criminal justice system, not only structurally but in such a way, that the hoi polloi, the every man, the man on the ground, can feel that he has a stake in the system,” Gaspard said.
In his address, CCJ president Adrian Saunders sought to highlight de la Bastide’s profound impact on the organisation he now leads.
He noted that the CCJ continued to “fight” to defend its existence and convince regional citizens of its value to the region.
“It is a struggle we still wage in our own way. But through the efforts of those like Michael de la Bastide, on whose powerful shoulders we proudly stand, tremendous strides have been made to win over hearts and minds,” Saunders said.
The move to replace the Privy Council will require the support of the Opposition as under the Constitution a three-quarters majority is needed in the House of Representatives and a two-thirds majority is needed in the Senate.
The United National Congress (UNC) has repeatedly stated that it would not support the move.
Speaking with Guardian Media as the debate over the move resurfaced, last week, with de la Bastide’s passing, Opposition senator Wade Mark said the UNC still believes the CCJ is open to political influence.
He said the PNM Government has shown it was prone to corrupting independent and public bodies.
At present, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana and St Lucia are the only Caricom members to have made the CCJ their final appellate court. The CCJ can still hear limited cases involving all member States under its original jurisdiction to determine cases over the application of Caricom’s Single Market and Economy (CSME).
In 2018, Antigua and Barbuda, and Grenada held national referendums on the issue but the proposal was rejected by citizens of both countries.