Dear Editor,
There appears to be a mistaken view that any decision by the Court of Appeal in the case brought by Eslyn David seeking to stop the declaration of the results of the March 2 elections is unappealable. That view is simplistic and wrong. Put shortly, the view is that the term “exclusive jurisdiction” used in Article 177 to describe the powers of the Court of Appeal, makes any decision by it unappealable.
Holders of that view may even consider that Section 4 (3) of the Caribbean Court of Justice Act supports their position. That sub-section contains another exclusion of jurisdiction with the following words: “Nothing in this Act shall confer jurisdiction on the Court to hear matters in relation to any decision of the Court of Appeal which at the time of entry into force of this Act was declared to be final by any law.” In other words, cases before the CCJ Act came into force constituted settled law and outside of the reach of the CCJ.
The situation changed radically after the Act came into force, opening the doors of appeal from a wide array of cases and matters. Exclusivity was no longer assured as Article 133 of the Constitution makes clear. That Article provides that “Parliament may make such provision as it deems fit authorising any court established or to be established, as the final Court of Appeal for the Caribbean to be the final Court of Appeal for Guyana.”
And Parliament did just that. Section 6 of the CCJ Act states that “an appeal shall lie to the [Caribbean] Court from decisions of the Court of Appeal as of right (emphasis added) in [among other things], any civil or criminal proceedings which involve a question as to the interpretation of the Constitution or in any proceedings that are concerned with the exercise of the jurisdiction conferred upon the High Court relating to redress for the contravention of the provisions of the Constitution for the protection of fundamental rights.”
In my view, therefore, there is no question that any decision by the Court of Appeal in the David case is appealable to the CCJ as of right.
Sincerely,
Christopher Ram
