Guyana’s Attorney General criticizes Caribbean nations for failing to adopt CCJ as final court

Guyana Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall has criticized Caribbean countries that have not yet made the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) their final court of appeal, calling the situation “a travesty” and a contradiction to the region’s stated goals of integration and unity.

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Speaking on his weekly “Issues in the News” program, Nandlall said it is ironic that while Caribbean nations continue to advocate for regional integration and independence from colonial systems, many still rely on the United Kingdom-based Privy Council as their ultimate appellate body.

“Most of the independent Caribbean territories have not signed on, and that is a travesty,” he said. “We often speak about regional integration, passionately pursue our rights as sovereign nations, and push for a common single market and economy—yet we can’t get our acts together to support one of the most significant regional institutions in the Caribbean, the Caribbean Court of Justice.”

Currently, only Barbados, Guyana, Belize, Dominica, and St. Lucia have made the CCJ their final court of appeal. Despite hosting the court’s headquarters, Trinidad and Tobago has not yet replaced the Privy Council.

Nandlall described the reluctance of other countries to adopt the CCJ as “an oddity,” noting that the court has been in operation for 20 years and stands as a “beacon of hope for the region.”

“There is hardly another institution of greater significance than the CCJ,” he said. “Countries in the Caribbean who are otherwise champions of regional causes are not signing up to the most premier regional institution—it’s an oddity.”

He also pointed to the results of referenda held in several Caribbean countries in 2018, where voters overwhelmingly chose to retain the Privy Council. Nandlall said this outcome underscores the need for stronger political will to advance regional judicial reform.

“Some countries still prefer, six or seven decades after attaining independence from Her Majesty’s government, to cling to an institution of colonial creation—the Privy Council,” he argued. “That remains an oddity; it flies in the face of Caribbean integration and regional unity.”