A prominent regional legal organization is sounding the alarm over unaddressed governance concerns at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), demanding that regional leaders launch an immediate, transparent investigation to prevent lasting damage to public trust in the court’s work.
The call for action comes from Kiel Taklalsingh, chairman of the Assembly of Central Legal Practitioners (ACLP), after he reviewed leaked internal correspondence between CCJ judges that was first reported by the Sunday Express. According to Taklalsingh, the exchange contained troubling red flags that raise serious questions about how the regional court is managed and hints at inappropriate efforts to sway judicial rulings.
In remarks outlining the organization’s position, Taklalsingh said the document left him with deep foreboding about the court’s internal operations. He argued the correspondence suggests the court could be at risk of authoritarian-style management, and pointed to what he described as possible improper interference with the independent decision-making of sitting judges.
Specifically, Taklalsingh highlighted the targeting of Justice Jamadar, a Trinidad and Tobago judge widely respected across the legal community. He noted that anyone with experience practicing law in the jurisdiction knows Jamadar as a fiercely independent, intellectually rigorous jurist and a dedicated defender of the rule of law — making any allegations of interference with his work particularly alarming.
These concerns cannot be brushed aside or left unaddressed, Taklalsingh emphasized. He is urging all Caribbean prime ministers and the Caribbean Community (Caricom), the regional governing body that oversees the CCJ, to move forward with a formal probe without delay.
“Having seen and read what has been brought to light, I have no choice but to call upon Caribbean prime ministers and Caricom as a whole to launch an immediate investigation into these matters,” Taklalsingh said. He stressed that any probe must be conducted quickly, comprehensively, and openly to rebuild public trust in the institution, if that trust has already been shaken.
Taklalsingh acknowledged that the CCJ has spent years building a strong reputation and earning the trust of Caribbean populations, with long-term goals of becoming the final appellate apex court for all regional territories. The current allegations, if left unresolved, threaten to erase all of that hard-won progress, he warned.
If the issue is allowed to fester without a thorough public investigation, the consequences will stretch far beyond the immediate questions of court administration, he added. “If this problem is not dealt with thoroughly, if it is allowed to fester, unfortunately all of the hard work that the CCJ has done in the past will go to waste,” Taklalsingh said.