PORT OF SPAIN– President of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Sir Dennis Byron yesterday welcomed the announcement that Dominica had been given the nod by Britain to adopt the CCJ as its final court, replacing the London-based Privy Council.
Sir Dennis told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that the nine-member Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), of which Dominica is a member, had long expressed a willingness to accept the CCJ as their final appellate court.
“I am also aware that each country has its own constitutional hurdles to overcome and its own internal arrangements to adjust. I think there are steps that have to be taken to ensure that the national communities are on board…and there are others steps which need to be taken to facilitate the final political decision process.
“I am pleased that Prime Minister (Roosevelt) Skerrit has now moved forward. I think it was towards the end of last year that he wrote the British government requesting their agreement. That’s the first constitutional hurdle that had to be overcome and he has done it”.
Sir Dennis said the next constitutional hurdle for the Dominica government will be to have the necessary legislation passed in Parliament.
“I am very happy that it has taken place, I rather hope that it would pave the way…for the other colleagues (in the OECS),” he said, acknowledging that some of constitutions of the member states of the sub-regional grouping were each different from the other.
“In some countries, the constitutions are not all identical. Each country has its own constitution and the provisions within vary from country to country. In the Eastern Caribbean there are two countries that require a referendum-Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda-, the others do no require a referendum (to join the CCJ).
“But there is nothing anybody can do about that today because those are what the constitutional requirements are,” he added.
Dominica’s Attorney General Levi Peters, speaking on the state-owned DBS radio Monday, said that the Skerrit administration would be bringing the necessary legislation to Parliament as soon as possible.
“The Dominica Constitution Amendment Bill 2014 which is already drafted should be before the Parliament shortly, I suspect before the next parliament,” Peter said defending the decision to join the CCJ.
He said between the first and second readings of the legislation there must be a 90 day period before it is fully debated and passed by a three-quarter majority of the elected members.
He said there were several advantages in adopting the CCJ, noting “one of the obvious one and which we often shy away from, but the reality is if we are independent it is ridiculous to be independent for somebody else to determine what you can do.
“You think about it…if somebody else if deciding what you can and cannot do, then how independent are you and I think this is an argument that has some merit,” he added.
The CCJ was established in 2001 to replace the London-based Privy Council as the region’s final court. But while many of the CARICOM countries are signatories to the court’s original jurisdiction, only Barbados, Guyana and Belize are members of the appellate jurisdiction.
The CCJ also acts as an international tribunal interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs the 15-member regional integration movement. (CMC)