– as St Vincent’s Justice Saunders takes the baton from Dennis Byron
The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the highest judicial forum in the Caribbean, will have a new President as of today; when Justice Adrian Saunders of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines takes over from Sir Dennis Byron.
The announcement was made by the CCJ on Monday. The event, according to a release, will take place as part of the activities before the 39th meeting of the Conference of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (Caricom). The conference will be held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, Montego Bay, Jamaica.
“The event will be live-streamed, starting at 4pm AST, so that the public can also experience the event,” the release also said. The CCJ will also host two special sittings of the Court to commemorate its new President. The first will take place at the CCJ, starting at 09:30h on Friday, July 13.”
“The second Special Sitting takes place in Mr. Justice Saunders’ home country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Friday, 20 July at 9:30 am at the House of Assembly in Kingstown,” the court added.
Saunders is also the Chairman of the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO) and the Course Director of the Halifax-based Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute’s CJEI’s Intensive Study Programme. He is also one of the Institute’s Directors.
Justice Saunders has also co-authored the book Fundamentals of Caribbean Constitutional Law and is a contributor editor of the Caribbean Civil Court Practice. In April 2018, he was appointed to the Advisory Board of the Global Judicial Integrity Network by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of the West Indies (Cave Hill – 1975) and the Legal Education Certificate of the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago in 1977. He was called to the Bar of St Vincent and the Grenadines in that same year.
He worked with Sir Dennis at the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court and was later reunited with him in 2011 when Sir Dennis was appointed President of the CCJ. Through the development of measurable performance standards throughout the Court, Byron had facilitated a progressive environment that promotes sustainable growth and evolution.
In the release, Justice Saunders paid tribute to Sir Dennis’ tenure at the CCJ, “to say that his impact is immeasurable is not hyperbole. During the period that Sir Dennis was President of the Court, we went from attorneys having to courier voluminous files to the CCJ, to filing by email and now full e-filing.”
Final rulings
The final two judgements that Byron delivered was one on presidential term limits for Guyana and one that struck down mandatory death penalties in Barbados. In the case of Guyana, Byron presided over the 6:1 ruling upholding, among other things, term limits for Presidents.
The constitutional challenge case brought by Georgetown resident Cedric Richardson in February 2015 had sought the court’s interpretation of the National Assembly’s changes to Article 90, as those related to four restraints on the freedom of choice by citizens at national elections.
Former Acting Chief Justice Ian Chang had ruled in July 2015 that the alteration of Article 90 by the Act No 17 of 2000, in substance and effect, undoubtedly diminishes the democratic rights of the electorate in electing a person of their own choice as President.
He had noted that such an amendment needs a referendum and is invalid and without legal effect for reason of non-compliance. He further ruled that Act 17 of 2000 seeks to dilute the pre-existing democratic rights of the electorate to elect a President of their choice. As such, while the Constitution provides for representative democracy, such representative democracy cannot encroach on popular sovereignty from which it derives and which is entrenched by the requirement of the referendum.
However, the High Court’s decision was appealed by the Attorney General’s Chambers and former Speaker of the House Raphael Trotman; both of whom were named as respondents in the court action. They asked that the ruling be “wholly set aside”.
Guyana’s Court of Appeal is scheduled to hear the appeal against Chief Justice (acting) Roxane George’s decision to uphold the contentious appointment of Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairman James Patterson on July 25. The PPP has already indicated its intention to go all the way to the CCJ, if necessary… in which case Justice Saunders will likely deliver such a ruling.
