Above: CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRocque

By the Caribbean Journal staff

CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRocque is calling on CARICOM Member States to make the Caribbean Court of Justice their final court of appeal, if they have not already done so.

LaRocque made the call during a conference at the University of the West Indies’ regional headquarters in Kingston on Tuesday.

He pointed to the recent judgment by the CCJ in Myrie v Barbados, which he said would cause a “shift in the way affairs in the Community were conducted.”

“It has also cemented the Community’s rules-based system and continues to engender a high level of confidence,” he said.

“I am certain that the judgment will be an historical contribution to the development of the Community integration arrangements,” he said.

On the CCJ, LaRocque said many around the region “seem to be pleased with the judgment on this particular matter in the court’s role in its original jurisdiction.”

“It should be borne in mind that it is the same court and the same judges who would be empaneled to consider matters in its appellate jurisdiction,” he said. “I hope that this would remove any doubts about the capacity of our jurists to render judgments of the highest calibre.”