By Sir Ronald Sanders
I have been an advocate of the Caribbean Court of Justice from its conception. In 2015, on the Court’s tenth anniversary, I described its creation as arguably the most significant institutional achievement of the English-speaking Caribbean since the Treaty of Chaguaramas. I have not changed that view.
I have also argued repeatedly that the CCJ is a people’s court. An appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council costs at least USD 65,000 and is, therefore, beyond the reach of most Caribbean people. By contrast, the CCJ, with its travelling Bench, video links and electronic filing, provides access to justice for persons of little means as well as for governments and wealthy companies.
The Court was also deliberately protected from political control. Its judges, other than the president, are appointed by an independent regional commission. The president is appointed by a three-quarters majority of the Contracting Parties, but only on the recommendation of that Commission. The Court’s operations are financed through an independently managed Trust Fund.
These are strong reasons for supporting the CCJ. But support for a regional institution cannot mean silence when serious questions arise about its administration. On the contrary, those who value the Court should be among the first to insist that such questions are answered properly.
The allegations now surrounding the president of the Court, Justice Winston Anderson, are grave. Internal correspondence reported by the Trinidad Express newspaper shows that five of his six judicial colleagues raised concerns about his leadership. The reported allegations include “dictatorial” administration, the manipulation of judicial panels and attempts to influence colleagues during deliberations.
But allegations are not findings. They do not become true because private correspondence has been disclosed and published. No independent body has found any of these allegations proved. Nor has anything published established that the outcome of any case was improperly determined.
I have known Justice Anderson for many years as a dedicated Caribbean public servant, a distinguished legal scholar and a committed worker in the cause of Caribbean jurisprudence. That acquaintance does not put me in a position to decide disputed facts. But it does allow me to say that his record of service should not be swept aside, and his character should not be determined, by allegations that have not been independently examined.
Justice Anderson has now answered the allegations. He rejects unequivocally the claim that panels were constituted to influence the outcome of cases. He maintains that the selection of panels has always been an administrative responsibility of the President and that he exercised it only for the orderly and impartial conduct of the Court’s work.
He has not claimed that every decision he made was beyond criticism. He accepts that he may have dealt too strongly with the question of judicial attire. He also acknowledges that his intervention in Guyana’s long-standing failure to appoint substantively a Chancellor and Chief Justice would have been better confined to public commentary, as his predecessors had done. His account deserves the same consideration as the allegations against him.
On 19 August, the Court announced that all judges will now sit on all panels unless a judge is formally excused for a legitimate reason. This change greatly reduces the scope for any president to choose which judges will hear a case.
That was a sensible decision. It was not an admission that panels had previously been manipulated. Equally, it does not establish that the previous authority was never misused. That question remains unanswered.
The difficulty is that no one appears able to say with confidence who has the lawful authority to answer it.
The Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission has said that the concerns should be addressed through the established internal processes of the Court and the Commission and through a “transparent and independent review”. It later clarified that it had not said that it had ordered such a review.
Senior Counsel Ralph Ramkarran of Guyana has argued that the Commission has no authority to investigate the president. The Commission’s disciplinary power expressly applies to judges other than the president.
Article IX of the Agreement establishing the Court provides a process where removal of a president may be under consideration. If at least three heads of government jointly represent that the question of removal ought to be investigated, a tribunal must be established to inquire into the matter and advise whether the President ought to be removed.
But that is a process directed towards possible removal from office. The Agreement does not set out, with equal clarity, who may conduct an independent examination of serious allegations against the President where removal is not yet being considered.
That is not a small procedural point. An investigation by a body without authority would resolve nothing. Its findings would themselves be challenged. Yet the absence of any credible inquiry would leave the allegations hanging over Justice Anderson and the Court indefinitely. Neither result would be fair to him, to the judges who raised the concerns, or to the Caribbean public.
In this respect, the constitution of the Court is unfinished. It provides a mechanism for removing a president, but not a clear and undisputed procedure for examining complaints against the holder of that office before the question of removal arises.
There is also the separate question of how the correspondence reached the press. The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Bar Association and the Organisation of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Associations were right to call for both the allegations and the disclosure to be investigated, and for the Court’s information systems to be examined urgently.
Confidentiality in judicial deliberations is essential. Judges must be able to exchange views, test arguments and reconsider positions without fearing that unfinished opinions will appear in a newspaper. The disclosure of such material has harmed the Court. But an investigation of the disclosure cannot be used to avoid an examination of the allegations. Both matters require attention.
Judicial independence does not mean that the administration of justice is beyond question. Independence protects judges and their decisions from political pressure and other improper influence. It does not excuse misconduct, if misconduct is proved, and it does not remove the need for accountability.
The heads of Caribbean Judiciaries put the matter plainly when they said that the Court’s authority “rests upon public confidence in the independence, impartiality, integrity and competence of its judges”. That confidence cannot simply be demanded. It has to be maintained.
The dialogue between CARICOM heads of government and heads of Judiciary in Montego Bay in July 2025 showed that the executive and judicial branches can engage each other while respecting judicial independence, the separation of powers and the constitutional role of each branch. That dialogue was not concerned with judicial discipline. But it demonstrated that properly structured engagement between the branches is not an attack on judicial independence.
Some of the eight CARICOM states that still retain the Privy Council may regard the present controversy as proof that they were right not to embrace the CCJ fully. That would be the wrong conclusion.
No court, whether in London, Washington, Strasbourg or Port of Spain, is free from internal disagreement. The question is how an institution responds when disagreement becomes serious and public.
Within days of the allegations being published, Justice Anderson issued a detailed reply. Within ten days, the Court changed the way judicial panels are constituted. These were necessary steps, but they were first steps only. They do not replace the need for an independent and lawful process to establish the facts.
The answer to a weakness in the governance of the CCJ is not continued dependence on the Privy Council. It is to correct the weakness. A distant court is not more accountable to Caribbean people simply because it is distant.
What is now required is a process whose authority cannot reasonably be disputed, which treats Justice Anderson and his judicial colleagues fairly and which establishes what occurred. The Contracting Parties must also close the gap in the Agreement so that, if a similar situation arises again, there will be no argument about who is authorised to act.
The Caribbean did not create the CCJ because we believed that its judges would never disagree or that its administration would never falter. We created it because we believed that Caribbean people were capable of administering justice at the highest level.
That belief now requires us to deal with this controversy honestly, lawfully and fairly. The Court will not be weakened by doing so. It will be strengthened.