CCJ moves into new home

After months at the cramped Unit Trust Corporation building on Independence Square, Port-of-Spain, the headquarters of the CCJ has moved to the spacious building, opposite to where Calypso Spektakula once stood majestically.

The first case to be heard at the new building will be a death penalty case from Barbados.

It is listed for hearing on June 20 and 21. It is the case of convicted Barbados killers Jeffrey Joseph and Lennox Boyce who were granted leave on March 29 before three CCJ judges in Port-of-Spain — Justices Rolston Nelson, Adrian Saunders and Duke Pollard.

This is the first death penalty appeal to engage the attention of the CCJ which was inaugurated in April, 2005.

Six matters have already been filed with the CCJ — all from Barbados and Guyana.

The Attorney General of Barbados will be represented by Roger Forde QC and Brian Barrow, while Alair Shepherd QC, Adrian King and Peta Gay Lee-Brace will appear for the convicted men.

Attorneys for the two men are submitting that as a result of the Pratt and Morgan decision by the Privy Council in 1994, it is considered inhumane and degrading punishment to execute them where five years had elapsed between the conviction and the date of execution.

On May 31, 2005, the Court of Appeal of Barbados comprising Justices Colin Williams, Frederick Waterman and Peter Williams commuted the death sentences to life imprisonment.

Prior to that, in a landmark decision in 2004, the Privy Council in London, by a 5-4 majority, declared that it was not unconstitutional to hang.

One year before, the same Privy Council, by a 3-2 majority, said the death penalty was unconstitutional. Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago petitioned the Privy Council and got another bite at the cherry.

In July 2004, the Law Lords changed their minds and said it was constitutional to hang killers. Months later, Barbados signed off from the Privy Council. By that time, five years had passed after Joseph and Boyce were convicted.

Joseph and Boyce were sentenced to hang five years ago for their part in the April 15, 1999, fatal beating of Marquelle Hippolite, 22.