New Funds needed

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Jan 20, CMC – Caribbean countries are being asked to re-examine the US$100 million Trust Fund that had been established to fund the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

The Fund had been established amid concerns that judges of the CCJ would be paid by governments which could exert decisive informal pressure on them to deliver judgments favourable to regional governments.

The Caribbean Court of Justice Trust Fund is administered by a Board of Trustees drawn from regional entities and as a consequence, the CCJ is the only integration court of its kind financially independent of the largesse of governments and free from their administrative control.

But now, Justice Ralston Nelson, one of the judges of the Port of Spain-based Court, said the time has come for a review of the US$100 million initiative given the changing global economic and financial environment.

“I think when the sum of 100 million US dollars was arrived at, obviously the data they had considered would not have included the collapse of interest rates and the collapse of a large part of the financial world in 2008.