The CCJ Cannot Be Allowed to Drift Into Crisis

The CCJ Cannot Be Allowed to Drift Into Crisis

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026 

The Region Cannot Look Away From the CCJ Crisis The Caribbean Court of Justice is facing a crisis that the region can no longer dismiss as an internal disagreement among judges.

The Caribbean Court of Justice cannot remain a silent spectator to its own institutional unravelling. Repeated leaks of confidential judicial correspondence, serious reported allegations about the administration of the court, and complaints about the manner in which an internal inquiry has been conducted have together produced a crisis of confidence. No responsible newsroom  should declare any judge guilty on the basis of leaked emails. Yet neither can the region accept an arrangement in which grave allegations circulate publicly while the institutions charged with defending judicial integrity offer no sufficiently clear account of what is being done.

Repeated leaks of confidential emails, grave reported allegations about the Court’s administration, public claims of intimidation in the course of an internal inquiry, and the prolonged absence of a clear institutional explanation have combined to place the credibility of the Caribbean’s apex court at risk.

This is not gossip. It is not a contest of personalities. It concerns the institution to which citizens of Guyana, Barbados, Belize, Dominica and St Lucia turn for final justice in criminal, civil, constitutional and other matters of the greatest consequence. It is also the court charged with interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, the legal foundation of CARICOM and regional economic integration.

The CCJ cannot credibly ask the people of the Caribbean to trust it while the public is left to learn about serious internal conflict through anonymous leaks, selected disclosures and competing claims in the press.

No publication  should pronounce  on any findings  on the basis of leaked emails. The reported correspondence is not a finding of fact. Nor should confidential judicial communications be casually exposed or treated as entertainment. If court emails were unlawfully obtained or disclosed, that is a serious matter, potentially involving cybersecurity breaches, breach of confidence and violations of judicial ethics.

But the illegality or impropriety of a leak, if established, cannot erase the public-interest questions revealed by what has entered the public domain.

The reported allegations include claims of authoritarian conduct, improper attempts to influence judicial colleagues, and concerns about the constitution of panels for particular cases. Justice Peter Jamadar has also reportedly objected to the manner in which an investigation was pursued, saying that he felt targeted, harassed and bullied after his administrative officer was questioned without his knowledge.

Those are not minor complaints. They go to the heart of judicial independence, collegiality, due process and the internal governance of a final court.

A litigant who comes before the CCJ must be able to believe that the judges hearing the case were selected by a proper, neutral and transparent process; that deliberations occur freely; that no judge faces pressure for reaching an independent conclusion; and that the Court’s administrative machinery cannot be manipulated to engineer a desired outcome.

That is the minimum standard—not an aspiration.

The Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission must now speak clearly. It cannot retreat behind general claims of confidentiality while the Court’s reputation is being steadily damaged in public. Some information may properly remain private: personnel details, evidence gathered in an inquiry, cybersecurity protocols and sensitive judicial communications. But the public is entitled to know whether an inquiry has been formally authorized, who is conducting it, its terms of reference, what safeguards have been established, and how conflicts of interest are being managed.

There is a central question that cannot be avoided. If the President of the CCJ is the subject of material allegations, how can he participate in, influence, or chair any process of the RJLSC that addresses those allegations? The principle is elementary: no one should be a judge in his own cause.

The RJLSC must therefore make known whether Justice Winston Anderson has recused himself from all deliberations, decisions and investigative arrangements connected to complaints involving his conduct. If there is no recusal, it must explain how the process can meet the objective test of independence and impartiality. If there is recusal, it should say so plainly and identify the independent procedure that has replaced the ordinary arrangement.

The Court and the Commission should also commission an external and credible inquiry—not merely an internal administrative exercise—into all aspects of this matter. That inquiry must examine the origin and scope of the leaks, the security and governance vulnerabilities that permitted them, the reported allegations concerning case-panel arrangements and judicial administration, and the complaints over the conduct of the investigation itself.

It must provide procedural fairness to every judge and staff member affected. It must not become a hunt for a source while ignoring possible wrongdoing or structural failure within the institution. Equally, it must not permit untested allegations to be used as a weapon against any individual judge.

The Caribbean has too much invested in the CCJ to allow silence, denial or institutional paralysis to weaken it. The Court was created so that Caribbean people could have a final court rooted in Caribbean reality, accessible to Caribbean citizens and answerable to the rule of law—not to London, and not to the politics or private conflicts of any one territory.

Yet this crisis is already handing ammunition to those who oppose the CCJ and prefer continued dependence on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Every day of unexplained silence will deepen the damage. Every fresh leak will invite further suspicion. Every failure to establish visibly independent accountability will reinforce the belief that the Court demands standards of others that it is unwilling to apply to itself.

Guyana, which has accepted the CCJ as its final court, has a direct stake in the answer. So do the people of every CARICOM country whose rights, liberty, property, businesses and constitutional protections may eventually depend on the Court’s judgment.

The CCJ must be protected—but protecting it does not mean protecting individuals from scrutiny. It means defending the institution through truth, due process, independent investigation and meaningful reform.The region deserves nothing less.