BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CMC) — A senior Caribbean jurist has dismissed as ‘sour grapes” allegations made by Dominican lawyer Cabral Douglas that the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) lacks independence and is supportive of Caribbean Community (Caricom) governments.

Speaking on the WINN FM radio programme “The Bigger Picture”, St Kitts-Nevis Queen Counsel Emile Ferdinand said Douglas’ “hostile and irrational, emotional criticism of the CCJ’s recent judgment in the case brought by him against the Dominican Government is clearly a case of sour grapes.

“After all it was Mr Cabral Douglas who instituted the proceedings in the CCJ. Surely one would not institute proceedings in a judicial tribunal which you thought was not a credible institution or was a kangaroo court.

“It is a case of sour grapes because it is clear that the reason for his criticism of the CCJ ruling is not only that it affects him personally but it was an adverse decision to his argument. So because you don’t like the decision, it goes against you, he has launched his tirade against the CCJ,” Ferdinand told the radio programme.

Douglas has been critical of the CCJ that was established in 2001 to replace the London-based Privy Council as the region’s final court, after it dismissed in February this year an application he filed accusing the Dominica Government of causing a breach of contract with the Jamaican entertainer Tommy Lee Sparta.

Douglas had alleged that the action of the Roosevelt Skerrit Government also caused multiple violations of his rights under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC), but the CCJ ruled that Douglas had failed to prove a breach of treaty rights which were intended to benefit him directly.

Tommy Lee, 26, whose real name is Leroy Russell, was scheduled to perform at a concert in February 2014, when on his arrival with three members of his team — Tiasha Oralie Russell, Junior Fraser and Mario Christopher Wallace — they were all denied entry, detained and deported the following day.

The Dominica Government said its action was based in the interest of public safety as several organisations, including the Dominica Association of Evangelical Churches, had denounced the artiste’s appearance saying his music glorifies Satan and promotes lawlessness and violence.

Douglas, the promoter of the Dominica show, said the stance taken by the Government was illegal and he was demanding more than three million US dollars in compensation.

He told the radio programme here that “the CCJ as a court…has not established its credibility among the people of the Caribbean”, adding that the decision against him was “political and does not have foundation in law and is an example of the colonial legacy of the CCJ and Caribbean justice”.

He said the CCJ in its Original Jurisdiction has only come into existence in 2005 and in that history” the court has only heard six or seven cases at best.

“They don’t have a body of law that has been established in the original Jurisdiction,” said Douglas, listing a number of cases heard by the CCJ including that of Shanique Myrie, the Jamaican woman who successful sued the Barbados Government over immigration matter.

Myrie was awarded damages in the sum of US$38,000 by the CCJ after she filed a lawsuit claiming she was subjected to a dehumanising cavity search by a female immigration officer at Grantley Adams International Airport, locked in a filthy room overnight and deported to Jamaica in March 2011.

Douglas said even in the Myrie case “it was not a radical or unprecedented decision” indicating that the RTC that governs the 15-member regional integration grouping, Caricom, provides for Caribbean nationals to travel freely.

He told radio listeners that his case was “more profound than Myrie” because the five Jamaican performers were travelling to Dominica to earn a living as provided for under the treaty, while Myrie was going to Barbados on holidays.

“Persons were coming to provide service in approved sectors,” he said.

Douglas defended his accusation that the CCJ was political, saying: “Sir Dennis Byron (CCJ president) finds himself at the [Caricom] Heads of Government Meeting on the same day the decision was being handed down.

“The thing about court and the credibility of courts [are that] courts are institutions that not only have to deliver justice but have to be seen to deliver justice,” he added.

Asked by the host whether he was aware in what capacity Sir Dennis was at the Caricom meeting, Douglas replied: “I don’t need to know what capacity, hobnobbing with prime ministers ….

“What I am saying is that the court needs to appear to be transparent in order to earn the trust among the people of the Caribbean and when you see that happen it ….puts a perception of a court that is not capable rising above politics and being objective.

“My final view of the CCJ is that… right now in 2017, the CCJ is not a credible court and it needs to take steps in order to move towards achieving that and one of the ways they can achieve that is to make credible decisions and two, not by beholding themselves to prime ministers in the region,” he added.

But Ferdinand said the attack on the CCJ by Douglas “is unfair, unjust and grossly inappropriate.

“The CCJ has given its reasons for the decision and even if one disagrees with the conclusion, you need to analyse the reasons. The CCJ, like any court, interpreting a treaty or an act of Parliament is bound to follow and cannot choose to ignore the language used in the instrument that it is interpreting.

“In the Cabral Douglas case, the use of the word directly in Article 222 was clearly of significance in the opinion of the CCJ,” Ferdinand said.

Dominica’s Attorney General, Levi Peter, speaking on the state-owned DBS radio, soon after the ruling, said Douglas did not meet the criteria for filing the matter before the CCJ, which has both an Appellate and Original Jurisdiction and serves an international tribunal interpreting the RTC.

“There are a number of criteria you have to meet and one of them is that you have an arguable case and the other is that you are prejudiced. In short the court has found he has not satisfied the criteria of Article 222 to bring himself within the provisions…”.