Zero tolerance!
IF re-elected after the May 24th elections, Prime Minister the Rt Hon Freundel Stuart says Barbados will bid adieu to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
He highlighted plans to de-link from the CCJ on Saturday night during a political meeting in Eagle Hall where he expressed concern about the level of disrespect shown to Barbados over the years by the court, concerns which he said he expressed some time ago to current president Sir Dennis Byron and which he expressed in the House of Assembly of Barbados.
“...A few months before Parliament was dissolved, I had occasion and the newspapers carried the report, to express my concern that judgements coming out of that Court had a kind of slant that I thought was not reflecting positively on Barbados and these judgements were giving the impression that Barbados is perhaps the most inefficient and bungling country in the Caribbean.”
Stressing that this unwavering decision has nothing to do with the recent judgment against the Chief Electoral Officer of the Electoral and Boundaries Commission, he said it has everything to do with the attitude of disrespect meted out to the country.
He said Barbados joined onto the CCJ in 2004 and was one of the original signatories. However to date there are only four Caribbean territories signed on. He reminded that while the Court is headquartered in Port of Spain Trinidad, that country is not a signatory.
Saying that the Court has heard two cases for the year, one from Barbados and one from Guyana, he stated that he is not commenting on those decisions. “I am an officer of the Court myself as a lawyer, I respect decisions that courts make. When I’ve disagreed with them I have appealed them. That is what every lawyer should do, what every officer of the court should do. But I am not going to have Barbados disrespected by any politicians wearing robes,” he said.
He said a situation has arisen where persons have been benefiting from judgements of the CCJ against Barbados, when their respective territories are not members of that appellate court.
“What has been happening here in Barbados recently is that citizens from those countries have been coming here to Barbados and we welcome them with open arms, and benefiting here in Barbados from the fact that we have signed onto that court in its appellate jurisdiction while their own countries have refused to do so.
“And I continue to be concerned. Let me make it very clear, I don’t care what decisions any courts make. Because courts decide, pursue justice according to law, sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong. Even the highest courts in England, the judicial committee in the Privy Council and the House of Lords as it used to be in days of yore, but the Supreme Court as it is today, have had to reverse themselves sometimes. So I don’t try to look for perfection in what judges do and do not do.
“But I continue to be concerned as Prime Minister of Barbados that the attitude of some of the persons sitting in Port-of-Spain, to Barbados and to litigants and to the justice system in Barbados seems to be disrespectful. And I cannot be leading a country that is being disrespected in that way. And recent events corroborate and support what I am saying. Sweeping the floor as it were with lawyers from Barbados and with public officers from Barbados as though they count for nothing. I am unhappy about that.”
Saying that he was one of the main advocates of the CCJ and urged the other Caricom nations to come on board, he said it was clear that was a mistake. “There is no other Caricom leader, not one, who was in the forefront of the advocacy of that Court’s cause to the same extent of Freundel Stuart, not one. I tried to get all of us to sign up, ‘we are regionalists, let us decolonise our jurisprudence’, I said all of those things. But in the same way that judges make mistakes, Prime Ministers can make mistakes too.
“I no longer feel that way based on how I see Barbados treated, Barbadian litigants and lawyers. I am not in any forefront of any advocacy, in fact I think the countries that have signed on to it in its appellate jurisdiction, demonstrated common sense.”
Prime Minister told the crowd that Barbados is not going back to the Privy Council. “Because we are not going backward. But I want to say this, once the DLP is re-elected to office, I am determined to put Barbados on the same level of any other Caricom country by de-linking from CCJ in its appellate jurisdiction. We went in first and we can come out first.
“I don’t subscribe to disrespect. And I think the attitude coming from Port-of-Spain leaves much to be desired in terms of how it is treating Barbados. And I am not going to have a situation where other countries in the Caribbean keep a safe distance from that Court while Barbados supports it and Barbadians are treated with the kind of disrespect that I see.
“If I were saying this for the first time tonight, anybody would be free to claim that I was only saying it because of what has been going on with the Chief Electoral Officer of Barbados. But the fact that I talked about this months ago and said that I was unhappy with the virtual slanders that were being hurled at Barbados through that court, nobody can question my bona fides or credibility on this issue.”
Barbados, Guyana, Dominica and Belize are the only signatories to the CCJ. (JH)