OPINION: Judicial heads on CCJ: seeing trees, not the forest

Last Updated on Thursday, 13 August 2026, 6:14 by Denis Chabrol

By GHK Lall

Heads of the Judiciary in different countries across the region came out and commented on the firestorm currently engulfing the apex court, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The heads had a rich mouthful to say. It would have been better if they had held their peace. They embarrassed themselves. They helped to make the CCJ look lesser when what it needed was a booster.

The judicial heads were careful not to go near the substance of the disclosures, the raging controversies, but they were sharp enough to point to breach of confidentiality. Damnit! That’s peripheral. Trees versus a whole forest to be seen, addressed. The substance is about integrity and impartiality. The nuts and bolts, the core, of the email leaks are about steerage for particular judicial outcomes. Another is about decision-making on the thorniest of issues -those cases with a political bent or flavor. While the heads appear to be more about circling the wagons, the ordinary man and woman across the region are wondering what they have for a system of justice. Frankly, I have seen these damage limitation exercises in action before, and they make the situation worse. Public confidence can never be enhanced by secrecy, by shooting the messenger.

Justice is about blindness. It about as simple and complex, as pure and pristine, as that can be. The hands that hold the scales must neither waver nor weave. They must not even display so much as a tremor. Yet, there were the regional judicial heads focusing on, and prioritizing, breach of confidentiality. Seeing a tree, missing the forest. Has the world gone mad around here? Definitely, I would assert, it has turned turtle, sprawled upside down. Though said before, it is worth saying again. The leaker or leakers did this region a grand favor. How much more of what was alleged to have gone on could have continued along those same lines? Before matters went really out of hand? Before there was an explosion in the worst way possible that made the recent leaks, look like child’s play?

I am weighing breach of confidentiality versus the concerns raised in the leaked emails and the former loses on each occasion. Breach of confidentiality pales into nothingness when compared to the need for judicial integrity of the highest order. The CCJ is not a lower court. It is the region’s highest court with no recourse to a greater authority. Therefore, it has to be a model of perfection (or as close as the group could come to such a state). It has to be about what is impeccable at all times, or then of what use is it to the peoples of this region? At least, its must appear to be so. Its deliberations, its work ethic, its very ethics, must always be in proximity to what is immaculate, what brooks no argument, what holds up before even the fiercest of probes. Should the CCJ step out of line, then all are harmed, all are left hanging.

The regional judicial heads were clever enough to skirt around the essence of the matters raised in the leaked emails. They claimed untimeliness and the usual lawyer’s jargon about merits and whatever else. Fair enough. But they were agile enough to grasp at the low hanging fruit of confidentiality breached and used that for advantage that is clear to only them. I think that they choked when a hard call and a harder charge had to be made. They copped out. But made themselves look small when they seized upon breach of confidentiality. Separately, leakers are an endangered species, hunted everywhere. But they are a necessity. Call them mavericks. Call them unorthodox. But they serve a purpose. Whistleblowers have to deal with internal mechanisms, which come with a huge deficit. Internal mechanisms are a part of the house (entity, organization), and the house is always about self-protection and self-preservation first.

To some extent, that’s what I discern in the reaction(s) of the regional judicial leads. Hold one head. Display a united front. Run interference for the brethren. I close on this somber note. The CCJ is not a secret society. Nor is it some higher order Masonic Lodge, complete with signs and passwords. The CCJ is of and for the people of this region. Thus, its feet must be held to the fire, regardless of the scorching. I smell flesh burning. It is nauseating, gagging. Judicial heads did not help.