DESCRIBING the current discord within the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as deeply troubling, former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding has recommended an urgent probe and speedy resolution, warning that delay could irreparably tarnish the institution’s reputation.

“Disagreements are normal and healthy in a panel of judges who may offer different interpretations of the facts and points of law. That is why a panel exists. One expects that such disagreements are expressed respectfully, unlike another jurisdiction where they are sometimes punctuated with personal abuse,” Golding said in a column sent to the Jamaica Observer on Thursday.

Golding weighed in on the turmoil which became public at the start of the week when the Sunday Express newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago published a series of e-mail involving CCJ President Justice Winston Anderson and colleague judges.

In the e-mail exchanges, a majority of the judges accused Justice Anderson of governing the regional court in an “authoritarian” and “dictatorial” manner.

Justice Winston Anderson

The complaints, as reported by the Sunday Express, range from accusations of Justice Anderson unilaterally imposing a judicial dress code to allegations of “panel fixing” and attempts to influence the outcome of cases.

The newspaper reported that the internal correspondence showed that five of the CCJ’s six sitting judges challenged Justice Anderson’s leadership, with one warning of “creeping patterns of anti-democratic approaches” and another calling for an urgent meeting to address “a level of disenchantment that may well be approaching a crisis point if left unaddressed”.

In one of the e-mail correspondence, presiding CCJ judge Justice Chile Eboe-Osuji told his colleagues: “I have never seen before the level of dictatorship in the administration of a judiciary that I have witnessed at the CCJ in recent months. There is a serious concern, not that the new trend would include an attempt to use a body like the RJLSC (Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission) as an unwitting instrument of dictatorship. The RJLSC performs important functions within the mandate properly conferred upon it in the CCJ agreement. It would be wrong of any CCJ president — who is also the chairperson of the RJLSC — to try and misuse that important body in that way.”

Explaining his use of the world “dictatorship”, Justice Eboe-Osuji said it was “because Winston himself told us early on in a judges’ meeting — soon after his assumption of office of president (July 2025) — that he did not see himself as ‘running a democracy’ and that he would run the court in any way that he deems fit”.

In his column on Thursday, Golding said, “What is alarming is that the disclosure involves accusations of autocratic behaviour by the president and his manipulation of panel selection aimed at influencing judicial outcomes.”

Added Golding: “More alarming is the fact that these accusations are made not by one or two judges, but all the other five. It is hard to believe that they could have all taken that position without due consideration.”

He said that without appropriate resolution, “this episode will tarnish the reputation of the court, perhaps irreparably. Even if it is resolved, it will have suffered a serious setback in its hopes of gaining acceptance as the final court for all Caricom member states”.

Golding said that responsibility for fixing this débâcle lies firstly with the RJLSC and called on the commission to “move swiftly to investigate the reports and assess the facts”.

Pointing out that removal of the president, if that is deemed necessary, can only be done on the recommendation of the RJLSC and with a 75 per cent majority vote of the Caricom heads of government, Golding said: “God forbid that that becomes another imbroglio similar to that regarding the reappointment of the Caricom secretary general.”

The former head of Government also said he was most surprised by the focus of some legal luminaries as well as The Gleaner newspaper editorial on the circumstances by which the information became public — through a leak of confidential e-mail.

“Without that leak we would most likely never have become aware of this dysfunction and the court could descend into unexplained chaos. The leak may have breached ethical rules for which remedies exist, but are we not entitled to know? Is that not what whistle-blowing is all about?”

Read the full text of Golding’s column on Page 12 of today’s Jamaica Observer.

GOLDING… without appropriate resolution, this episode will tarnish the reputation of the court