Samuels, regional heads of judiciary bemoan leak of internal CCJ emails

Veteran attorney-at-law Bert Samuels on Tuesday doubled down on his call for the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to be Jamaica’s final appellate court despite the controversy now engulfing it with the publication of leaked emails by the Sunday Express in Trinidad. Addressing a media briefing he staged on Tuesday, Samuels condemned the leak of the emails and argued that integrity by judges must be maintained at the highest standard. “I go to the recent comment of Member of Parliament Marlene Malahoo-Forte in her post on X, formerly Twitter....Mrs Forte, a former attorney general and former minister of constitutional affairs, took a position to which I agree.

She — regarding the leaked emails of a number of CCJ judges, which has led to all of this — said, 'What a poor display of judgement'. The leak of internal emails among judges, internal issues, is a bigger problem than those issues on the discussion. “Of the issues on the discussion was the dress and the clothes that judges should wear at the CCJ.

Can you imagine the clean linen of the court became the concern of the public? The person who leaked that must have been so mischievous minded to find that was important for public discourse. She then went on to say, 'Do you realise how this impacts those of us looking on the CCJ?' It was a discussion about the CCJ, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the delivery of judgement or with the integrity of the president and the judges.

It had to do with leadership style," said Samuels. The Express reported that CCJ president Justice Winston Anderson was being accused, by a majority of fellow judges, of governing the regional court in an “authoritarian” and “dictatorial” manner. According to the report, the judges' complaints ranged from the unilateral imposition of a judicial dress code, to allegations of panel fixing and attempts to influence the outcome of cases.

Samuels — who has made no secret of his desire for Jamaica to ditch the London-based Privy Council and make the CCJ its final court — also referenced comments from former government minister AJ Nicholson to bolster his position. "AJ Nicholson, a former minister of legal affairs...and minister of justice, has consistently argued that Jamaica should replace the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice, mainly because he sees the CCJ as more accessible to the ordinary Caribbean people.