CCJ can’t make Barbados pay Shanique Myrie judgement
As an old friend used to say “IANAL” – “I am not a lawyer”
But if a judgement from the CCJ cannot be enforced, what’s the use? Isn’t the whole justice system a farce then? Why bother taking anything to the CCJ?
How does this impact foreign investors who might be interested in doing business in Barbados or other Caribbean nations?
Can someone please explain this to me. Why bother having a CCJ if the judges have no power?
CCJ lacks mechanism to enforce Shanique Myrie judgement, says judge
ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) – A judge with the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Friday said there was no mechanism to enforce the judgement following the recent ruling in the case involving the Jamaican national Shanique Myrie.
Myrie successfully sued the Barbados Government after she was refused entry into the island in 2011.
The CCJ, which was established in 2001 to replace the London-based Privy Council as the region’s final court, and also functions as an international tribunal interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs the regional integration movement, awarded pecuniary damages in the sum of BDS$2,240 (One BDS dollar = US$0.50 cents) and non-pecuniary damages to the tune of BDS$75,000.
Justice Ralston Nelson, speaking at the workshop for regional broadcasters on the regional integration and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME), said there was no order to implement the court’s ruling.
He told the broadcasters to the workshop, organised by the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat with funding from the 10th European Development Fund (EDF), that there is also no power in the national laws for a CCJ order to be treated as a national order.
… continue reading the Jamaica Observer article CCJ lacks mechanism to enforce Shanique Myrie judgement, says judge
Barbados Free Press 
Shanique Myrie has tested the CCJ and now it has been proven to be a farce? What’s new.
The whole Caribbean seem to be a bunch of crooks.
What is the purpose, raison d’etre etc., of the CCJ ?
Given the above,why would any sane, rational person wish to conduct any type of business in Barbados where the wheels of justice grind extremely slowly and sometimes not at all ?
We have become the laughing stock of the region ! And worse yet, those in charge,the majority of whom are lawyers, are like Rip Van Winkle, except when it comes to filling their own pockets largely with ill-gotten gains !
There is nothing alarmist in what the judge said. He was simply giving expression to the division between international law (no enforcement of judgments/no police force/system is consensual) and municipal law (system is legislative/imperative). There is nothing strange in that since the entire international legal edifice depends, for the most part, on good will and the ‘strange’ concept that a ‘man’s word is his bond’. The issue is, I agree, whether the government of Barbados understands that or whether it will continue to whine and sulk as it did after the judgment in Myrie.
One more farce!
Now you all are getting our point? So then who are the courts for?
Its for the crooks , Liars and Scumbags Only ,
Massive fraud is the plan of the day ,those with titles need to beheaded ,The people MUST wake up and Stand .
The rush to form the CCJ was all about consolidating power in the hands of the abusers and facilitators of the status quo.
The Privy Council in England was detested in the Caribbean by some members of the legal profession because it was impartial and could not be controlled as a means of further abuse.
Who wants a decision they cannot influence or pre determine?
No enforcement means no justice!
I for one wish that Myrie never get a red cent of my taxes, it’s not the Government, it’s the people of Barbados hard earn money, so, if anyone who feel that this woman deserves this money can pay her themselves.
There are two jurisdictions of the CCJ, Original and Appellate.
In the first instance the Court enforces the Treaty of Chaguaramus. Any signatory to the Treaty can choose to ignore the rulings and thereby the Treaty.
In the second instance, the ruling the CCJ makes become the rulings our local courts enforce.
Shanique Myrie’s case was not in the Appellate Jurisdiction so it would be unfair to compare what happens here with what happens in the Appellate jurisdiction ….. our local courts enforce the CCJ judgments.
…. all the same, the GOB was ordered to pay Barak by our local courts but hasn’t which suggests the enforcement of our court rulings stands shaky …. at least some of people.
Barbados is signatory to other Treaties and is bound by other courts … eg Inter American Court of Human Rights.
Barbados may not obey an order from this court if it doesn’t want to ….BUT ….it pays another way because it won’t get International lending agencies to lend it money if it behaves like it is run by a bunch of lawless hooligans who have no time for the niceties of International Treaties.
ie its credit rating goes in the toilet.
……..but ….isn’t that what is happening?
Guess we can make our inferences about our leaders from that.
banana republics are always run by monkeys, why should this region be any different?
Nice comment John/ by the way how is your jamaican credit doing,and your Almighty dollar.. Not one cent she getting …Not A dime. @@@D oracle which one of them banana republic’s you from.
Runt
You got it.
Although the politicians were on about CSME there is not much to be had so they don’t care about breaching the treaty they have among one another.
…. and it’s not only bananas we will get, but peanuts also!
… that’s about right …. Barbados has been 50 years in the “making”.
She deserves every cent she sue the government for because if the jackasses here understood the importance of the electronic eye and procedures they would not have been sued. If the government do not pay I would be racking up the interest and hiring a London base law firm to bring another case in Barbados, this time for millions..