The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is an international court headquartered in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The CCJ has both a Community treaty jurisdiction (much like the European Court of Justice does for the European Union), in which it interprets and applies the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the Caribbean Community including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (RTC), and a final appellate jurisdiction to which four Caribbean States – Barbados, Belize, Dominica and Guyana –currently subscribe. The Court’s personnel complement extends to approximately 80 staff members, including seven judges.

The year 2020 has been irremovably etched into the annals of the history of the Court, not least because of the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the region and the world. On April 16, 2020, the CCJ marked 15 years of service to the people and States of CARICOM. This milestone came just over a month after the World Health Organization (WHO)declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

The CCJ was well placed to respond to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic for several reasons. Since its inception, the Court has had to cater to the geography of its customers ranging from Belize in Central America, to Suriname and Guyana on the South American mainland and Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean. The CCJ has always, therefore, paid great attention to its information and communications technology infrastructure. More importantly, the Court has at all times sought to fulfil its published vision statement – “To be a model of judicial excellence”.

For some years now, the CCJ’s filing, case processing and case management systems have been electronic or automated. Technology has also been used as one of the ways in which the Court has promoted the principle of open justice. The onset of the pandemic therefore did not significantly impact the CCJ’s capacity to continue with its schedule of sittings and other work. However, the new situation posed by the pandemic required the CCJ to go one step further.

Before the pandemic, the CCJ’s judges, registry and information systems staff typically assembled together at the court building during hearings, even if the litigants and the lawyers appeared by video conference. However, with the onset of the pandemic, the CCJ adopted a more expansive use of an online productivity tool, which had previously been used to support collaboration and communication among staff, by deploying it to facilitate fully virtual court sittings. With this transition, hearings are now being conducted completely using video conferencing technology with all judges, the lawyers and almost all registry and information technology-support staff participating from their respective homes or offices. The judges of the CCJ also conduct pre- and post- hearing deliberations online. Naturally, hearings have continued to be live-streamed.

Quite apart from the full transition to remote hearings, the CCJ also adopted a number of special measures to protect the health and safety of staff and judges, while continuing to guarantee access. On April 6, 2020, the CCJ issued a Practice Direction to relax certain filing and court formalities that are more difficult for court users to comply with. This was done with a view to continue to ensure access to the CCJ and its services for customers given the need to interact with the Court remotely as well as the effects of the various restrictions on movement and gathering imposed in several CARICOM countries.

At the headquarters, the mandatory observance of appropriate physical distancing, sanitisation and mask-wearing continues to be scrupulously followed by the CCJ and its staff members. In an effort to minimise the risk of contracting and possibly spreading the virus, most staff work from home on some days of the week and work from the Court office on other days. The CCJ has also put in place transportation arrangements for staff members who, prior to the pandemic, utilised the public transportation system to commute to and from the court building, when they are required to work from the Court.

The pervasiveness of the virus, the suffering it has brought, and the unsettled life that all of society now endures has created hardship and anxieties. The CCJ has recognised that its personnel are not unaffected. Therefore, particularly during the height of the crisis in 2020 staff were regularly contacted by court managers to ensure that they were well and to offer any support that may be needed. The CCJ’s crisis response team continues to monitor the environment and its impact on personnel with a view to promoting health and safety and ensure continued, reliable operations.

It is true that an organisation’s most important resource is its people. The past year has demonstrated this several times over. Staff and judges alike have demonstrated a remarkable willingness to go beyond the call of duty in order to serve both the Court, as an institution, as well as its customers. Everyone has embraced learning new technological skills and sharpening existing ones. Everyone has remained committed to excellence and optimal service delivery, even while tackling disruptions in their daily lives as has been precipitated by shared work spaces, home-schooling and everything else that has been thrown at them over the past year. The Court truly lauds and is grateful for their unwavering dedication.

The present crisis has required courts, including the CCJ, to demonstrate initiative and be both responsive and pro-active. It has fully epitomised Professor Susskind’s prescient notion that a court is not a place; it is a service. This notion and the lessons learned over the past year have reiterated for the Court that in order to continue to be a model of judicial excellence, we must continue to re-imagine our approaches to service delivery to ensure that the CCJ remains responsive to all our stakeholders.