CARICOM launches Administrative Tribunal

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Feb 17, CMC – The Caribbean Community Administrative Tribunal (CCAT) was launched here on Monday with the President of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Adrian Saunders saying it represents the region’s commitment to upholding the rule of law.

Justice Saunders, who is also the chairman of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission, sworn in the five member CCAT that will be based in Trinidad.
“The establishment of this tribunal represents for me yet another indication of CARICOM’s commitment to upholding the rule of law. The tribunal provides enhanced access to justice for staff members of CARICOM institutions, and it is therefore with a deep sense of pride and satisfaction that we witness today’s launch,” Justice Saunders told the ceremony held at the headquarters of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC).

He applauded the efforts of The University of the West Indies, the CCJ, the European Union and the International Labour Organization (ILO) as well as the various CARICOM institutions, for their inspiration, assistance and determination to ensure the CCAT became a reality. “Before today’s launch, CARICOM was in the undesirable position where the staff of its institutions faced obstacles in having reviewed internal administrative and disciplinary decisions with which they were not entirely satisfied. The establishment of CCAT seeks to close that gap.”

He said the tribunal had important and interconnected responsibilities and provides the avenue for the open ventilation and final resolution of employment related grievances between CARICOM institutions and staff members. It also affords protection to staff members when they have to contend with the possibility of wanting to seek judicial review before national courts, and it avoids them having to plead their diplomatic immunity before the national courts of member states.

Justice Saunders said it affords those staff members adjudicatory outcomes that would be no less efficient and effective than those that would ordinarily have been otherwise obtained in the domestic courts. Endorsing the view that the region should not regard the CCAT as a CCJ institution, Justice Saunders stressed that there were very practical issues which mitigate against any such perception.

“We mustn’t forget that the staff of the CCJ, themselves, are entitled to access the institution, and therefore it is very problematic for the CCAT to be regarded as a CCJ body,” he said, noting that in the statute, appeals from the CCAT can go to the CCJ. The five members are: President, Patterson Cheltenham (Barbados); Lisa Shoman (Belize); J. Emile Ferdinand (St. Kitts and Nevis, Commonwealth of Dominica); Dancia Penn (The British Virgin Islands); and Westmin James (Trinidad and Tobago).

CARICOM leaders, who meet here on Tuesday for their two-day Inter-sessional summit, had established Tribunal at their 30th Inter-sessional Meeting in St. Kitts-Nevis last year. Meanwhile, Barbados Labour and Social Partnership Relations Minister, Colin Jordan, said Bridgeton welcomes the establishment of the CCAT with its independent judges and its capacity to protect workers.

Jordan said it recognises that regional workers must be protected and that mechanisms have to be created to facilitate that protection. “That protection must not just be theoretical; there must be practical outcomes, practical instruments and practical organizations that speak to the protection that we offer to our workers. “Too often, organizations and those who lead organizations view these constructs either as enemies or as opponents; the Trade Union Movement knows that but that is also a perspective sometimes shared as it relates to tribunals that have been set up to create that atmosphere of justice for workers,” he pointed out.

While noting that workers, as the engine of an organization and its human capital, must be spoken to as human beings, Jordan added that with unequal power relations in organizations, these workers needed protection. He urged the region to develop partnerships with CCAT adding “the Tribunal and organisations that speak to bringing justice to workers should be seen as partners.

“And, I want to encourage CARICOM member organizations to see this tribunal as part of a system designed to partner with your respective organizations that will bring some transparency to that worker-organization relationship. “CARICOM, if it is to mean anything to the ordinary people of the Caribbean must be seen as an organization that exemplifies best practice and I think this tribunal, while created to speak to the regional workers of CARICOM member organizations, must be used as an example to ordinary people that CARICOM represents something that we can all aspire to – that CARICOM can be the exemplar of good practice in a wide variety of areas, including worker-management relations.”

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