Six High Court judges are to be reassigned across several Eastern Caribbean jurisdictions this month in what the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) has described as part of its regional deployment of judicial officers.
The changes, announced by ECSC Chief Justice Margaret Price-Findlay, will affect the judicial benches in St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Montserrat, Grenada and the British Virgin Islands.
According to a notice published by the ECSC-https://www.eccourts.org/judicial-reassignments- Justice Sejilla McDowall will move from Dominica to the St Kitts Circuit from today, September 14.
Justice McDowall, a Vincentian, previously served as the first female Director of Public Prosecutions in St Vincent and the Grenadines before being appointed to the regional bench.
Justice Patrick Thompson Jr, who is currently assigned to the St Kitts Circuit, will move to Montserrat on the same date.
Justice Iain Morley will be transferred from the Nevis Circuit to Dominica, also with effect from September 14. Justice Morley, an English barrister with extensive experience in criminal and international law, has served in St Kitts and Nevis since 2021. Before that assignment, he sat in Antigua and Barbuda and also served as the designated judge for Montserrat.
Acting Justice Davidson Kelvin Baptiste will also move from Montserrat to Dominica tomorrow.
Justice Akilah Anderson is being transferred from the British Virgin Islands to Grenada, while Justice Paula Gilford will move from Grenada to the Nevis Circuit from September 21.
The St Kitts-Nevis Observer reported that Justice McDowall and Gilford, who both have substantial experience in criminal law, will replace Justices Morley and Thompson in the federation.
Justice Thompson has presided over a number of criminal, civil and constitutional cases during his tenure, including the 2023 election petition arising from the Nevis Island Assembly elections.
Justice Gilford has served as the presiding judge of Grenada’s Criminal Division and has dealt with serious criminal matters, including murder cases. She has also spoken publicly about the treatment of children, sexual-offence complainants, elderly people and other vulnerable witnesses in the court system.
The movement of the six judges is an interesting development at a time when the administration and independence of regional courts are under heightened scrutiny following the controversy over leaked internal emails from the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
The CCJ and ECSC are separate judicial institutions. The ECSC serves nine Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States jurisdictions, while the Trinidad-based CCJ operates as the final appellate court for participating Caribbean states and as the court responsible for interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
Emails leaked last month reportedly disclosed serious tensions among CCJ judges and contained allegations about the leadership of CCJ President Justice Winston Anderson, including claims of interference with judicial panels and decision-making. Justice Anderson has rejected allegations of panel manipulation and improper influence as “wholly untrue”.
The OECS Bar Association and the Organisation of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Associations subsequently called for an immediate investigation into both the leaking of the correspondence and the allegations contained in it.
Justice Anderson, in an August statement, said robust and candid exchanges among judges were a normal feature of appellate deliberations. He maintained that the CCJ’s judges remained independent and that no judge had been pressured to alter a judicial opinion.
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