Caribbean Community governments have asked the region’s highest court to give them an opinion as to whether a member of the 15-nation group of countries can legally opt out of decisions taken by the collective regarding the right of some categories of Caribbean citizens to live and work anywhere in the region.
The Guyana-based community secretariat wants the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to indicate whether it acted correctly in granting special permission to the Eastern Caribbean nations of Antigua and St. Kitts, allowing them to opt out of their obligations to allow farmworkers and security guards to live and work freely in the two nations in keeping with rules from the umbrella single market and economy system.
The court has already heard verbal arguments from a slew of attorneys and has promised a decision in the coming days, given the importance of the case to governments as a precedent.
Current single market rules allow leaders to determine which categories of workers and professionals could benefit from the right to love and work freely in the bloc of nations, stretching from Guyana and Suriname on South America’s Caribbean coast to Belize in Central America.
Contention has always been a bugbear in this aspect of the free market system with some of the smaller economies fearing that their economies would be swamped by hoards of workers fleeing economically challenged countries like Haiti, putting pressure on social and other state services.
Court President Adrian Saunders says the system will make every effort to wrap up the case as soon as possible. “I wish to thank all counsel for their efforts and their submissions. We are going to consider all of them of course, and I wouldn’t be able to give you a time now when we will give the decision, but I can tell you that it will be given during a reasonable time.”
Some of the attorneys noted that the key rules regarding a nation’s wish to opt out of an obligation are silent on penalties and consequences so they want the five-judge panel to provide guidance on this gray area.
In the past decade or so, journalists, musicians and a string of other professionals were granted permission to live and settle freely in a participating member state providing they meet all the legal, academic and other qualifications including personal character certificates from local police systems.
Some countries have baulked at the idea of leaders extending permission for security guards and farmworkers benefiting from the free movement, fearing that local workers will be displaced, in spite of the fact that in many cases many locals have shown little interest in such types of jobs.
Arguing for St. Kitts, Deputy Solicitor General Simone Bullen-Thompson pointed to the socio-economic situation in some countries as a factor for moving to opt out of agreements regarding free movement.
“All states are not on equal footing,” she said. That position received the support of bloc secretariat attorney Corlita Babb-Schaefer who suggested that “some member states may require a transitional period to facilitate adjustment to decisions of the comforts pursuant to article 46 of the treaty, which deals with enlarging as appropriate, the classes of persons entitled to move and work freely in the community.”
