Resolutions adopted at the CAJO’s AGM on Friday 22nd November at the Hamilton Princess, Bermuda. 

Statement on the Wellbeing of Judicial Officers and Judicial Staff adopted at the CAJO’s AGM on Friday 22nd November at the Hamilton Princess, Bermuda. 

The Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO) brings together the region’s Chancellors, Chief Justices, Judges, Masters, Registrars, Magistrates, Tribunal Members, Executive Court Administrators, and other judicial staff. In March 2022, the CAJO was incorporated as a Non-Profit Organisation in accordance with the Companies Act Chap 81:01, Laws of Trinidad and Tobago. The CAJO is led by a Management Committee who also serve as its Board of Directors. The first meeting of the CAJO took place in June 2009 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The first Chair of the CAJO was Justice Adrian Saunders, current President of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), who served in this role from 2009–2019. To learn more about the work of the CAJO between 2022 and 2024, read the CAJO Report.

The Disability and Inclusion Awareness Guidelines are intended to provide Caribbean judiciaries and judicial officers with a practical tool for further developing and implementing key practices and procedures that promote and secure the rights of persons with disabilities, particularly in the administration of justice. These Guidelines are fashioned in three parts: 1. The Introduction which provides an in-depth look at constitutional, ethical, and international underpinnings of the rights of persons with disabilities; 2. The Guidelines themselves which are across ten (10) key areas of disability inclusion and awareness; and 3. A Background to the development of these Guidelines, along with additional resources. To access the Guidelines as individual documents, contact us at info@thecajo.org. View the launch of this publication by clicking HERE.

The Criminal Bench Book for Barbados, Belize, and Guyana comprises twenty-eight chapters. The first twenty-three  chapters open with general principles in the subject area of law and then narrow down to provide jurisdiction-specific principles, directions, and guidelines for the three individual jurisdictions respectively. The final five chapters are novel in that they address areas of judicial attention that are newly emerging, constantly developing and increasingly relevant to Caribbean justice. These are: Criminal Case Management; Judge Alone Trials; Procedural Fairness; Therapeutic Jurisprudence, and Human Trafficking, Forced Labour, and Modern Slavery. View the launch of this publication by clicking HERE.

The JURIST Project sought to identify the disability-specific barriers that persons with disabilities face and build the capacity of judicial officers to strategically address barriers by creating an accessible courtroom and court services in the Caribbean. Qualitative research methods were employed to understand the lived experiences of PWDs with the justice system in The Co-operative Republic of Guyana, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica via focus groups and elite interviews with persons with disabilities and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) for persons with disabilities. Quantitative research was deployed via an online survey to glean baseline understanding of the professional experiences of Caribbean judicial officers with PWDs. This was achieved through partnership with the CAJO, who facilitated distribution to approximately 900 judicial contacts (email addresses of judicial officers across the region, including the civil law jurisdictions). The research was done during September 2022.

The Judicial Reform and Institutional Strengthening (JURIST) Project sought to remedy the lack of information about ITPs in the Caribbean, inter alia, by collating baseline data on ITPs’ rights and priorities in the six above-mentioned countries, all member states of the CARICOM. It commissioned six-in-country studies to start this process, each written by an expert in consultation with ITPs’ organizations and communities.

In April 2021, The University of the West Indies (UWI) partnered with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) and the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO) to establish a joint UWI/CCJ/CAJO Committee whose broad objective was to conduct an examination of the worksheets and other course materials used in core courses at The UWI Faculties of Law at Cave Hill, Mona, and St Augustine with a view to determining the extent to which English and other non-Caribbean texts, judgments and other teaching aids as opposed to Caribbean texts, judgments and other course materials are referred to in the teaching-learning process.

At the CAJO’s Annual General Meeting which took place on Friday 28th October 2022, as part of the 7th Biennial Conference in Saint Lucia from 27th – 29th October 2022, Resolutions were adopted.

This report highlights the CAJO’s work for the period November 2019 – October 2022 and notes future projects.

This report shares surveyed experiences and insights of Caribbean judicial officers’ wellbeing. By understanding the issues faced by judicial officers across the region, appropriate interventions can be conceived and calls to action become strengthened.

These insights also provide an opportunity for each of us to champion the recognition and promotion of wellbeing on the bench, in our workplaces, and in every other part of our lives. By recognising that wellbeing is fundamentally connected to and connects all parts of our being, we not only ensure healthier judicial officers, but healthier systems that secure and promote equality, fairness, and justice. From a more utilitarian perspective, wellbeing is directly linked to performance. And ethically, the wellbeing of judicial officers, of all judicial staff, is an imperative of judicial integrity – a core value that requires attention to the whole system.

The CAJO conducted brief exploratory research into attitudes towards staff contribution in judiciaries across the Caribbean amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

This interrogation also sought to determine whether judicial officers, administrators, and staff believe that cultures of classism, status, patriarchy, and institutional hierarchy exist in their court systems, and how those cultures impact on regard, respect, and appreciation for staff.

The CAJO offers recommendations in this regard and hopes to use this an entry point into providing tailored education programmes for judicial officers and staff.