CCJ has been a blessing to Guyana – AG

…court praised for “highly commendable” rulings

Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, has praised Guyana’s court of last resort, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) for what he described as “highly commendable” rulings in matters, in particular, those of a high constitutional nature and on politically tense issues.
He made the comment last Thursday while addressing a law seminar organised by the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus, Law Faculty, to discuss rulings by the Caribbean’s two apex courts, namely the Trinidad-based CCJ and the UK’s Privy Council.
The meeting was entitled: Privy Council (Chandler) v CCJ (Nervais): The “Savings Law Clause” and Caribbean Constitutional Interpretation. It saw the presenters sharing their views on these two fundamentally different approaches to the interpretation of the savings clause in Commonwealth Caribbean constitutions by the two apex courts.
The Privy Council did not agree with the reasoning of the CCJ in a trilogy of decisions, namely, Nervais v R, a case from Barbados; and McEwan v Attorney General of Guyana and Marcus Bisram v Director of Public Prosecutions, both cases from Guyana.
Savings law clause is a common feature of the Constitutions of former British colonies, including Guyana, which was included at independence to provide continuity of the law during a transitionary period. It is found in Article 152 of Guyana’s Constitution.
According to Nandlall, the fundamentally different approaches to the interpretation of the savings law clause taken by the courts in these matters have to do with several factors, including interpretation, jurisprudential rationale, and philosophy.
“Both the CCJ and the Privy Council have arrived at highly tenable, highly attractive, and highly commendable positions. It’s a question of philosophy, jurisprudence, and how one sees oneself as a final court,” Nandlall told the panel of regional legal minds.
“As I said, one is distant,” the Attorney said as he referred to the Privy Council’s location.
He labelled the CCJ as being indigenous and a product of the environment. These, he noted, are the innate and intrinsic factors that are informing the difference in “outlook and output”, in other words, the rulings being rendered by the courts.
With Guyana abolishing the Privy Council in 1973, it did not have a final court of appeal outside of the country until 2005 when the CCJ was inaugurated. Nandlall believes that the addition of the CCJ to the country’s judicial structure has been revolutionary.

Benefits to Guyanese
He pointed out, “The benefits that Guyanese have derived already from the CCJ are certainly immeasurable in particular when it comes to very important, highly tense political issues. Outside of that, in land law, in particular, we’ve had a great amount of equivocation, ambiguity, and confusion on the area of land law in particular Roman Dutch law. Those issues were completely clarified by the CCJ in a series of decisions.”
When it comes to commercial litigation, the Senior Counsel stated that the CCJ has provided great clarity on several issues in its pronouncements. In constitutional matters and matters related to election laws, the CCJ has clarified very crucial and highly contentious issues, said the Attorney General. He noted, “It [the CCJ] has been a great blessing for Guyana and the people of Guyana.”
Besides Nandlall, the other members of the panel were Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes, a former Judge in Trinidad and Tobago; King’s Counsel Dr Francis Alexis, a former Attorney General of Grenada; Dr Lloyd Barnett, Chairman of the General Legal Council and the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights; and Professor Eddy Ventose, Dean of Law at UWI Cave Hill Campus.
Apart from Guyana, in its Appellate Jurisdiction, the CCJ is also the final court of appeal for criminal and civil matters for Barbados, Belize, and Dominica. All the other Caribbean Community (Caricom) member states have retained the Privy Council.
Meanwhile, in its Original Jurisdiction, the CCJ is an international court with exclusive jurisdiction to interpret and apply the rules set out in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC) and to decide disputes arising under it. The RTC established Caricom and the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME).
In its Original Jurisdiction, the regional court is critical to the CSME and all 12 member states which belong to the CSME (including their citizens, businesses, and governments) can access the court to protect their rights under the RTC. (G1)