Time for the CCJ

Sadly, deadline issues conspired to exclude personal reflections on yesterday’s ceremonial sitting of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) at Queen’s Hall, Trinidad to honour the service of outgoing President of the Court, Justice Adrian Saunders.

Justice Saunders, who demits office on July 3, has been a member of the Court since its very first sitting 20 years ago, and has been at the helm for the past seven years.

He is a native of St Vincent and the Grenadines and is often referred to as a “home-grown” Caribbean jurist, having graduated from The UWI Cave Hill campus in Barbados in 1975 and the Hugh Wooding Law School in T&T in 1977.

Getting to know him at the professional level about 10 years ago brought confirmation to recurring hearsay regarding his determined commitment to Caribbean development and sovereignty, and his vast knowledge on matters of law and justice.

As a mere layman with an interest in such matters, there have been few occasions during which Justice Saunders, even in casual inter-personal “obiter dicta”, has not provided me and others around him with instruction on questions of balance, fairness, and accuracy.

These qualities, of course, were also habits of the predecessors I came to know, including one past President who summoned me to his chamber over what he assessed to be an inaccuracy surrounding the status of the CCJ Trust Fund – a unique financial mechanism designed as insulation against arbitrary behaviour by contributing nations.

Despite this, there are members of the legal profession and politicians here and in our region, who persist with silliness over the perceived vulnerability of the Court to parochial financial whim.

It should also not be that millionaire advocates with big national and regional reputations are correspondingly confused about or ignorant of the work and status of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission (RJLSC) which presides over the independent appointment of CCJ judges.

Some of these people sometimes scour social media pages and posts and even contribute to relevant online conversations but never attempt to correct repeated public ignorance and folly surrounding the Court.

It is also patently untrue to assert that “Trinidad and Tobago NOT in de CCJ” despite its headquarters being situated in POS. I have heard this too many times. This is a nonsense built into political narratives particularly expressive of a lack of support for the CCJ in its discrete role as a court of final appeal.

For the benefit of proponents of such confusion, the CCJ is actually a hybrid institution serving both as a “municipal court of last resort” – its appellate jurisdiction - and as an “international court vested with original, compulsory and exclusive jurisdiction in respect of the interpretation and application of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.”

In fact, this country has been the subject of the largest share of cases before the CCJ with respect to its “original jurisdiction” role. The last T&T related judgment came on October 22, 2024 (a “CLICO” case), and the first one involved Trinidad Cement Ltd in July 2008.

It is also not widely acknowledged (or perhaps known) that the CCJ is an itinerant court – meaning it can convene hearings in any of the signatory countries.

The question of the appellate jurisdiction of the Court has also been subject to a variety of nonsenses. The funding issue and judge selection have been addressed higher up. Don’t just take it from a journalistic “bush lawyer”, look it up.

But what of the ethnic makeup of the CCJ Bench? This is among the more egregiously insulting observations about the Court made by those who have most likely not conducted a corresponding head count in other apex jurisdictions, including the one of their own lucrative choice.

This year, the Court marks 20 years since its inauguration on April 16, 2005. Justice Saunders is to be succeeded next month by Justice Winston Anderson – another committed regionalist with dual Barbadian/Jamaican nationalities.

He was founding Chairman of the CCJ Academy for Law in 2010 and, through his work as a panellist contributing more than once to the work of the Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC) in our journalism training, is clearly committed to expanding knowledge not only of how systems of law and justice work, but about the place of the CCJ in Caribbean life.

Even in the absence of the ideology and philosophy often cited in support of an indigenous apex jurisdiction, and most of the countervailing silliness and ignorance, a rational debate can be engaged on the merits and demerits of a CCJ. I am yet to witness one.

 

The Code is Orange

As is the known routine, numerous developmental babies will go crashing through open windows together with sometimes murky administrative bath water as the country transitions painstakingly from one political administration to the next.

In some instances, the stillborn will number among the casualties. In others, healthy, promising offspring will meet their doom. In the process, sustained social and economic opportunity is sacrificed in the name of newness and change.

Had circumstances been different, we could have afforded the folly of past eras, but the challenges of today do not offer abundant space or time to fail to advance the development agenda.

Our rich bounty of creative value and its potential for wealth creation is too often wilfully ignored. After all, what good is a STEM without the flowers and the fruit?

Thankfully, mention of the prospects for our “orange economy” featured occasionally during the recent campaign. There was little difference in platform rhetoric. This may signal room for future bipartisan support and administrative collaboration.

There are people and organisations who have been consistently making the case for greater recognition of the creative sector. The T&T Chamber, for instance, has significantly developed the concept with accompanying concrete initiatives in the areas of film, music, and fashion. It has also elaborated vital connections with tourism, software, and intellectual property. This is one wheel that requires no inventing.

Generally, the country has something of a head start in the areas of steelpan, mas’, and indigenous music. Yet, there is need for a more enlightened, self-reliant approach.

Some arithmetic has already been done regarding cold, net national gains, but the calculations associated with chemistry are lacking.

It was promising that the Global Trinidad and Tobago umbrella - under which exporTT, InvesTT and CreativeTT were to be relocated - had been conceived and quite recently launched.

Yes, there is always room for tweaking and refinement in achieving the required synergies. But, to me, the move represented long-awaited awareness of national value through a harmonising of official, national effort in the creative sector.

It is however also true that private entrepreneurship in this field has long been practised and, in some cases, highly refined. There are people who have never sought or acquired official support who have made their mark and are contributing to national wealth in the process. Let’s hear from them.

But a single coordinating mechanism for exploring all available options and creating an official framework to allow initiatives to be fruitful makes eminent sense. Global Trinidad and Tobago is a viable baby that should not be exposed to an open window for disposal.

Fine, the powers that be may wish to have folks involved among whom they feel more comfortable – though the code here is “orange” and not “yellow” or “red.” It is a shade somewhere in between those primary colours.

This newspaper space has been repeatedly employed to promote greater awareness of what is happening in the creative field outside of the headliners in pan and music. There is an abundance of literature, theatre, dance, and the visual arts.

Pan remains the best thing we do in this country. There is little debate there. But also scan what is unfolding among young people in the wider field of music. This is not happening in small bits and pieces. There is a virtual avalanche of young musical talent crossing the traditional divides and presenting itself in greater frequency throughout the country and region.

Hopefully, when there are people assigned to action this it will not include those who will be overly surprised. We have had line ministers, public servants, and sundry officials who are clueless about what is happening. You don’t see them at the shows. They are absent. They are blissfully unaware.

Additionally, having renewed my own embrace of visual art, I have become increasingly aware of the vibrancy of this field of artistic endeavour. There are exhibitions, markets, online ventures, tuition opportunities, and an entire world that has remained largely ignored (in some respects thankfully so) by officialdom.

Finally (as if there isn’t so much to say about today’s subject), have a look at what is happening in the literary field. Who was or wasn’t at the 2025 fifteenth edition of Bocas LitFest? This is a premier annual event. Aside from this, there are numerous launches, readings, workshops and other activities that tap into the literary assets of our country.

Space has run out for me yet again. But check our features pages and the weekend GML supplements. Tell me what you see. If you don’t see great promise, your eyes aren’t working properly.

Our crowded agenda

Though Friday’s ceremonial opening of parliament simply sounds the opening whistle to signal the start of a new session, there is every indication that the forthcoming legislative agenda has the potential to keep members intensely engaged – especially if we were to take seriously the announced transition of election “minifestoes” to official policy.

It is however also true that not every UNC campaign wish means an amended law or a new one. Here are three issues of legislative relevance that should not needlessly cram the parliamentary schedule.

For example, enforcement of the Noise Pollution Control Rules under the Environmental Management Act, more diligent enforcement of the “public nuisance” feature of the Summary Offences Act, and resurrection of the Explosives (Prohibition of Scratch Bombs) Order 2018 can tell us you are serious about addressing harmful, disruptive noise.

What is needed here is stringent application of existing laws and regulations. Yes, there can be some tweaking here and there, but we really have enough ammo to deal with this.

This would leave space for addressing touchier issues such as the striking anomaly of equal opportunity legislation which okays discrimination against people based on “sexual preference or orientation.” Employers, landlords, schools, and service providers cannot be prosecuted and punished on such grounds under this law.

It is my understanding that a suitable amendment is already available, and groups such as CAISO, Pride TT and others have people with the knowledge and expertise to lend a hand in this matter. So, easy-peasy, little time and effort is needed to get this one done.

Then comes the more vexing, complicated issue of mismanagement in the handling of immigration matters. Hopefully, minister Alexander has busied himself with the minute details regarding administrative tardiness in this hugely important area, and the attorney general is aware of the relevant international human rights landscape.

For example, what could possibly take decades to manage residency petitions?  Why has the processing of asylum-seekers here not been guided by proper refugee policy and is not fully compliant with international law?

On the latter point, the UNC has had much to say in recent times, following early ill-advised resistance. Hopefully, we will not follow the example of others who have chosen to openly ignore some basic principles of international law associated with accommodating people claiming to escape oppressive conditions in their home countries.

Of the 37,906 refugees and asylum-seekers registered by the UNHCR in T&T, more than 86% are from Venezuela. The other 14%, from over 38 countries over the years, also require attention. Let’s not forget them.

The figure of 100,000 undocumented immigrants - snatched out of thin, speculative air by numerous commentators and even some learned researchers - may or may not be accurate. Not all arrivals have registered. But it has become fashionable to promote negative narratives regarding the ubiquitous presence of Venezuelans here by employing such guesstimates and the consequential reality of an “invasion” or unmanageable “influx.”

There is also the fact that close to 1,400 children have been born to registered asylum-seekers and refugees in T&T since 2018/2019. As far as I am aware, we are one of those countries in which unconditional “birthright citizenship” (jus soli) is observed.  The reluctance to integrate these children into our school system has been one of the gross injustices of recent years.

Last year, the parents of only 148 children applied to attend public school and just 60 were accommodated. This is one campaign promise a la minifesto - “the integration of Venezuelan migrants” - that also does not require too much parliamentary time to implement.

It is, however, a multifaceted imperative that sees several arms of government becoming simultaneously engaged.

This includes immigration, health, education, social services and others. For those with “jus soli” status, our clever legal fraternity must surely be engaged in preparing pathways for application of the rights of these children, if not under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

There are also thousands of adult Venezuelans currently in nervous possession of expired permits hoping to benefit from a new, more enlightened, regulatory regime.

These are only three of the burning issues that can be addressed within a relatively short period of time and are mostly in keeping with the spirit of election campaign promises/declarations.

While the public wish list is much longer than these three areas, the advantage of newness should be applied to get them out of the way quickly.

The governments we want

First published in the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian on May 16, 2018

Having covered and observed Caribbean elections over several decades (and even participated in one 37 years ago as a Tapia candidate), I must say I have always wondered why so many political contestants are eventually proven to either be wholly incompetent or hopelessly dishonest and corrupt.

Don’t get me wrong. I will never suggest that there aren’t many honourable, decent and skillful people who offer themselves for political office … and win. In fact, I have often wondered what it would have been like to have brought some of our finest office-holders together under national unity administrations throughout the Caribbean to help fix our broken societies.

I would even risk the prima facie naïve suggestion that the best our political parties have had to offer over the years could have collectively head-off some of the mess we are now faced with.

But then, politics is all about the calibration of power dynamics. There need to be wholesome forces competing against each other to bring about a sense of balance and restraint against excesses – sometimes even when the contestation is illusory.

I suppose the social scientists would argue that this is the nature of so-called “western democratic values” and why totalitarian experiments have all failed – as indeed they have – because the political space required to pit ideas against each other is a requirement of societies that crave democracy and the freedom it portends.

Only last year, a paper written by Josh Halberstam, Richard Öhberg, Daniele Paserman, Mikael Persson, Martín Rossi and Juan Vargas for the US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) attempted to answer the question: Who becomes a politician?

You know, I can’t remember what led to the search that unearthed the paper, but what I found – albeit in an almost completely different context, since they used Sweden as the political laboratory – was that there are real questions Caribbean people need to seek answers to if we are to rise above chronically poor political performance.

For example. Can our democracies attract competent leaders, while attaining broad representation? The writers of the NBER paper point to economic models which suggest that “free-riding incentives and lower opportunity costs give the less competent a comparative advantage at entering political life.”

In T&T, we would perhaps call this the “eat-ah-food” phenomenon – otherwise unaccomplished individuals with no real skills or abilities to talk about, catapulted onto the national stage with huge assignments and responsibilities, and encouraged to play the part because of the perks of office. In the wrestling ring of politics, it could perhaps be identified as “a reverse Maslow.”

Then comes the assertion that if the better endowed (intellectually and financially) “validating” elites - to abuse Lloyd Best’s unavoidable expression - are selected on the basis of perceived competence and absence of the “eat-ah-food” complex, there is more likely than not to be unevenness in the actual representation of the population.

In our context, though, it is also conceivable that both the intellectually and financially well-endowed and positioned may prove to be entirely incompetent. In T&T and among our Caribbean neighbours there are enough examples of where this has turned out to be the case.

This is why though we may wish not to give expression to this conundrum constitutionally, there perhaps needs to be, in the fashioning of our political organisations, more studious examination of the process of political selection. Such a re-examination would consider the balancing of the concept of “broad” representation against the requirement to have the best human resources at the wheel.

One huge component of all of this, of course, is the requirement of greater political education - a task none of our current political organisations has been able to sustain and one the formal education system has failed to effectively deliver.

Because our political parties are mainly dedicated campaign outfits, there appears to be little will or ability to expand their functionality in this important area.

So, while we wait, we not only get the governments we deserve, we sometimes regretfully get the ones we want.

Urgent business

Take it from me. Post-election shenanigans, tribal conflict, internecine warfare, boastfulness, regret, grossly dishonest promises, jockeying for position and favour, and acts of shamelessly unveiled partisanship by clever pretenders will all eventually end or subside considerably.

Getting down to business, as we have learned over the years, is best realised sooner rather than later and such awareness has grown, albeit slowly, to become a part of our evolving political culture.

You see, there have been times when extreme urgency, following encroaching complacency, abruptly entered the picture to dampen overflowing, but fleeting exuberance.

In 1981, George Chambers declared the fete over and it was time to get back to work. Five years later, financial stringency entered the routine lexicon of governance forever. Through the years, declarations on the state of treasury holdings have accordingly become a mandatory feature of newness.

Today, urgency associated with national well-being has offered up fiscal menus associated with overdrafts, borrowings, raids on rainy-day savings, dampers on state and private spending, and the dreadful thought that there might be assets suitable for disposal.

“Fixing” denotes a now familiar refrain of disrepair – in our case chronic and systemic – and the stuff of joint enterprise. Yep, “all ah we”, suggesting serious challenges against hope. Because I pay close attention to our youth, I can tell you that hope is a quality in short, as opposed to abundant, supply.

It also provides little comfort that the embrace of new solutions to address a deficit in confidence has not been meaningfully prescribed. This space has harped on just one area of forsaken opportunity (and there are many) – the digital reality.

Our young people, as digital natives, have recognised the negligence. And this is not only about generative AI which is essentially a tool made available by the timeless, spaceless character of digital spaces, no more than the way hammers and screwdrivers are critical to activities at a construction site.

What is even more important is the proposed architecture and its relationship with lived and natural environments. There are real experts in this sort of thing who can extend the metaphor.

That T&T lags behind so many, of like developmental status, on this question suggests that the same urgency attached to diagnoses of poor economic conditions is not being assigned to key components of serious solutions.

We shall see, in due course, whether this point is being understood. For instance, it is built into the question of remote work (currently lost in puerile public discourse), together with concerns about things like the “ease of doing business” and the conduct of routine citizen transactions.

Mind you, there is messaging in this not only for state systems but in the way the private sector also does its business. True, personal experience does not the entire story tell, but poll friends and family and colleagues and listen for yourself.

We have simply not been getting this right. And I am concerned that there is a level of demotivation that’s happening among our young people born into the digital age. And they are protesting through withdrawal as they, and the tools they use, are presented as problems and not as solutions.

“How does it feel to be a problem” W.E.B. Du Bois once memorably asked.

I have contended here before that while the more seasoned folk ought to be there to provide context and memory, the drive to achieve “digital transformation” should be in the hands of the under-40s.

There are numerous indicators of success or failure in our five-year tranches, but I propose to maintain vigilance over this one. Yes, there are urgent, immediate needs that require rather rare, enlightened engagement, but I know that I am not alone in keeping an eye on this.

The last time I left this country, I was asked to complete a silly little form with an additional, forgotten field I wrote by hand, in crapaud foot, at the back. When I returned, there was no room on the other form for the full name of my country. I lost yet another pen to a fellow traveler, and half the flight forgot to sign the back of the same form for customs.

I once asked an officer what eventually happens to these forms. Yes, I’m done here. I gone oui.

 

Election Money

Among the noteworthy developments arising out of last week’s General Election, and the run-up to it, is the fact that despite the prior fuss over the need for independent, international monitoring of the process, very little has since been said about the work of two observer missions in the country.

Such a shortcoming has been observable across the political spectrum in the post-election phase. Instead, “we won” and “we lost” have been the two dominant narratives signified by cheers and tears for which first-past-the-post electoral arrangements are widely known.

The numerous passionate public appeals, correspondence, memoranda, and meetings to ensure external monitoring now seem like distant echoes in a fast-flowing tributary of public commentary and contemplation.

First, the frantic calls met by the open resistance of those in charge, then acceptance and muted surrender, to public slander on the presumed primordial instincts of a Caribbean team.

Then emerged the support of the 56-member Commonwealth – still, to some, not representative of “international” scrutiny, as if a team from Malta, Dominica, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Maldives, and Guyana, with support from a UK-based Secretariat had not met the basic features of geographical spread.

A larger 12-member Caricom group comprising electoral officials and experts from eight countries did concurrent work. And, by the way, the government of T&T was not responsible for financing these activities.

The focus post-election, so far, has been almost exclusively on the constituting of a new political administration, attending to internal convulsions, and the challenge of making good on extravagant promises.

In the process, barely concealed partisan posturing has turned to both open revulsion and gratuitous applause - the agenda for change consequently located along a spectrum of the impossible and the eminently possible.

Thankfully, there are now independent experts, with no distinguishable dogs in the recently completed race, to dissect the details with data and evidence.

Meanwhile, as has been the case in the past, international observers have come, they’re seen, and they have reported (at least preliminarily) with some reminders and guidance on getting things right the next time around.

I need to remind us of at least three issues placed on the table for consideration by the Caricom Observer team of 2020 which closely align with the observations of the Commonwealth team of 2015, and again in 2025.

These include campaign finance reform, digital transformation in matters related to elections, and accessibility issues regarding the elderly and disabled.

It should not have taken COG Chair, Evarist Bartolo of Malta to remind us of the 10-year-old recommendation to “prioritise this process” of electoral campaign finance reform.

For, even at that time, the issue was nothing new to us. The first report of a Joint Select Committee (JSC) appointed in November 2014 to “propose a legislative framework to govern the financing of election campaigns … ” had already been submitted in 2015.

Three elected MPs of 2025, on both sides of the House, are among the signatories to that 10-year-old report which proposed, among other things: “limits on private campaign financing of political parties and candidates in order to promote fair competition during elections and reduce incentives for corruption and undue influence in politics.”

The issue gained traction for some time, including consideration of an appropriate “independent and professional regulatory body” to monitor and consider sanctions for breaches.

The EBC was favourably considered by the JSC, and an amendment to the Representation of the People Act was tabled in parliament for debate in 2020. It included the idea of a National Election Campaign Fund, in part to address the question of private funding and the potential for the negative impacts identified by the 2015 JSC report.

It was suggested that most major actors were supportive of the kinds of reforms that would not currently have us in a state of confusion regarding the identities of “financiers” of a brief but intense election campaign with visible spend in the millions and millions of dollars.

I have suggested in the past that the main beneficiaries of campaign spend should also be among the entities for which mandatory disclosure is a requirement. These include both private and state media – who almost all earn substantial revenues from electoral campaigns.

Meanwhile, we have political parties that built their campaigns around the notion of transparency and accountability – key attributes of responsible governance – and who now must give legislative teeth to their stated commitment to such values.

It should not require impartial international monitors to remind us of this. It should happen as a natural outcome of political intent expressed on the political platform. Let’s see how that goes.

Our Wounded Civilisations

The gracious pronouncements of party leaders Dr Keith Rowley and Kamla Persad-Bissessar in defeat and in victory respectively Monday night was a welcome, comforting experience at the end of a brief but bruising election campaign.

Even so, the injuries sustained, even by celebrants, will require that we pay much closer attention to the way we engage such contests in the future.

A few years ago, I met a woman during a Caribbean assignment. She was a divorcee with two adult children resulting from a particularly abusive marriage. She told me that several times after being attacked, she awoke in a hospital bed.

There were short-term and lasting physical and emotional injuries – some of them evident in the tone and manner of her narrative and behaviour, and in visible features of her physical appearance.

Throughout the period of abuse there was little to suggest that things had gone badly wrong. Everybody, including the attacker and child witnesses, were putting on a pretty good show.

The conversation I had with that person came to mind last week when a colleague said it appeared that every time we have an election in T&T a period of emotional “recovery” is required, even by the declared winners.

I used the word “convalescence.” Not the paralysing type that brings silence and inaction, but of the variety that generates a facade of normalcy. I thought, for example, of the numbness expected to greet racist remarks, insults, disinformation, defamation, and other forms of normalised verbal violence.

In other Caribbean territories I know well, emotional cover is also required against the threat and experience of actual physical violence. Instances of this are few and far between here, but there is professional guidance that does not make a sharp distinction between the body and the mind.

To reinforce this, my friend recommended I read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk. It’s not my kind of reading so I reluctantly listened to one portion of the audio version.

The writer’s basic assertion is that “trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.”

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) also appears to have collective, communal characteristics, in the sense that populations undergo processes of denial, guilt, and pain while putting on a splendid show in the face of internal convulsions – much like the wounded lady.

We occupy a Caribbean space in which the injured abound. For instance, psycho-social wounds persist over 40 years after the fall of the People’s Revolutionary Government in Grenada. Who can also deny that Jamaica’s political violence between 1970 and 1980 (more than 800 people were killed in the 1980 elections) has not left scars requiring continued treatment?

Guyana’s decades-long political trauma spanning the late 1950s and into the 1980s remains evident in the tenor of the political discourse and actions of 2025. There are open wounds left unattended after many years. Examine closely, for example, current convulsions in Tuschen and Georgetown. Any “recovery” clearly remains incomplete.

In T&T, we can begin the comparisons years before 1970 and 1990, but much has already been said about the hangovers from those dramatic events that remain today.

We have not had the death and physical traumas of some of our neighbours, but our minds and therefore our bodies, have kept the score. At election time, some politicians and their supporters ensure the scoreboard keeps ticking.

Head of the Council for Responsible Political Behaviour, Dr Bishnu Ragoonath recently reported on  “racially charged and derogatory language, character attacks, excessive negative campaigning, and the removal or defacement of opponents’ campaign materials” when he described breaches of its code during campaign 2025.

This is the limit of the Council’s responsibilities, much like the requirements of the Sixth Schedule to the Representation of the People’s Act which prescribes a Code of Conduct for Political Parties to “regulate the behaviour of members and office holders of political parties, aspiring candidates, candidates and their supporters, promote good governance and eradicate political malpractices.”

It is not within the scope of either the Council, which operates as an institutional check on political behaviour, or the Code to monitor psycho-social impacts. That’s our brief as citizens.

It is however the responsibility of the main political actors who provide the ammunition and triggers that routinely take us to the A&E each time we are required to engage electoral decision-making. This year has been no exception. We must endeavour to put an end to this. Monday night signalled some promise – through both cheers and tears.