Caribbean & Central America - December 2018

In two referendums at the beginning of November, both Antigua & Barbuda and Grenada rejected replacing the UK’s Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the last court of appeal.

The CCJ has two roles. Firstly, it judges issues pertaining to the Caribbean Community’s (Caricom) founding treaty, the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, and all Caricom members submit to its jurisdiction in these matters. Secondly, it acts as the court of final appeal for member states which have decided to replace the UK’s Privy Council in this role. So far, that is just Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and Guyana out of the 15-member Caricom.

The simultaneous referendums were held on 6 November. In Antigua & Barbuda, Prime Minister Gaston Browne and the ruling Antigua & Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) campaigned for a ‘yes’ vote, but the opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) said it was not in favour of the switch. In the event, the ‘no’ side won by 9,234 votes to 8,509 on a 33% turnout.

The same negative message was delivered by the voters of Grenada, who had already delivered a ‘no’ vote on the same question only two years earlier. In Grenada, the ‘no’ campaign secured 12,979 votes against 9,846 for ‘yes’, and Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said after casting his own vote that if ‘no’ prevailed there would not be a third attempt to force the change.

Nevertheless, he was less than gracious about the ‘no’ campaign, saying: “I really don’t have a problem with voices who say they want to say ‘no’, but to concoct false stories to confuse people, for what I reason I don’t know…. This is not about party, this is about our children and grandchildren.”

As in Antigua, Grenada’s main opposition, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), supported the ‘no’ campaign.

The CCJ, and other supporters of deeper integration, expressed their disappointment but pledged to continue to press for greater regional integration. Justice Adrian Saunders, the president of the CCJ, said: “While the news is not what we hoped for, we respect the people of both nations and their decision. The court will naturally continue ongoing initiatives with justice-sector bodies in each of these countries.”

He added: “These results will not, of course, deter us from serving with distinction those nations that currently send their final appeals to us.”

Interestingly, only a few days after the referendum setbacks, the CCJ issued a ruling that gained considerable publicity. It ruled that a law in Guyana that makes it a criminal offence for a man or a woman to appear in a public place while dressed in clothing of the opposite sex for an “improper purpose” was unconstitutional. 

The case dates back to February 2009 when four of the appellants (they were joined in the case by the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination – SASOD), who identify as transgender persons, were arrested and subsequently convicted and punished for cross-dressing in public. At the time of arrest, one of the appellants was dressed in a pink shirt and a pair of tights, another was wearing slippers and a skirt, and the other two were dressed in skirts and were wearing wigs.