CCJ crucial to CSME

Dec 28, 2008 News

– Justice Desiree Bernard

According to the international news agency Reuters, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCI) has come to the point where it will be experiencing a lot of challenges in relation to the interpretation and application of the provisions of the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
Justice Desiree Bernard made the remarks at the fourth annual Olive Trotman Memorial Lecture on Friday night.

Justice Desiree Bernard

The function was organised by the Barbados Public Workers’ Co-operative Credit Union Limited and held at the Sherbourne Conference Centre, Two Mile Hill, St. Michael.
Present at the occasion were members from the local judiciary, attorneys-at-law and persons from various credit unions.
Justice Bernard talked about the Caribbean Court of Justice and its relationship with the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
She said, “I apprehend the CSME to be one, large, single economic zone within which people, markets, services and skills can be moved freely with minimum restriction.”
“Inevitably, problems will arise, for instance, with the removal of restrictions that prevent entry and participation in the negotiated markets, and it is in this regard that the court’s original jurisdiction comes into resolving disputes between member states or application by nationals,” she noted.
“The Treaty [of Chaguaramas] establishes a competition policy, the goal of which is to ensure the benefits expected from the creation of the CSME are not frustrated by anti-competitive business conduct, and for the purpose of implementing that policy, provides for the establishment of a Competition Commission with a variety of powers to deal with business conduct which prejudices trade or prevents competition within the CSME.”
Justice Bernard noted that the treaty empowers the Competition Commission to apply to the court for relevant orders when conducting investigations, and also for a party aggrieved by a determination of the commission to apply to the court for a review of the determination,
She went on to say that, “All of the foregoing indicates that the future of the CSME is heavily dependent on the court and on its interpretations of the treaty whenever it is called upon to make them.”
Madame Justice Bernard, who was Guyana’s first female High Court judge; first female Justice of Appeal; first female Chief Justice; first woman Chancellor of the Judiciary, and is the first CCJ female judge, was also the first female speaker in the Olive Trotman Lecture Series.
She also praised the Barbados Public Workers’ Credit Union for the remarkable development it has made over the years.