Module 3: Legal Institutions and Processes
Module 3 covers the institutions that run the legal system and the processes carrying a case from charge or claim to final appeal: court hierarchy, judicial officers, prosecutors, juries, the legal profession, legal aid and alternative dispute resolution.
Courts
Magistrates' courts handle summary offences, committal proceedings for indictable matters, and civil claims within a statutory monetary limit. The High Court has unlimited civil jurisdiction, tries serious indictable crime, and hears constitutional and judicial review claims. The Court of Appeal hears appeals; the final court is either the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council or, in states that have acceded to it, the Caribbean Court of Justice. The CCJ also has an original jurisdiction interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
Personnel
Judges are appointed on the advice of a Judicial and Legal Service Commission, hold office to retirement and can be removed only for inability or misbehaviour on an address by the legislature - safeguards of independence. The Director of Public Prosecutions decides whether to prosecute, may discontinue proceedings and is not subject to direction. The Attorney General is the government's chief legal adviser. In serious criminal trials the jury is the trier of fact; the judge rules on law and passes sentence.
Profession, aid and ADR
Most Caribbean states have a fused profession: attorneys-at-law both advise and advocate, admitted after the LLB plus the Legal Education Certificate from Norman Manley, Hugh Wooding or Eugene Dupuch law school. Legal aid schemes and court-annexed mediation widen access; arbitration is governed by statute.
Worked example
Ana is convicted on indictment of robbery in the High Court. She says the judge wrongly admitted identification evidence and that her sentence is excessive. Reasoning: her appeal lies to the Court of Appeal - as of right on the question of law raised by the evidence ruling, and with leave against sentence. That court may dismiss, quash the conviction, order a retrial or vary sentence. A further appeal to the final court needs special leave; it is never automatic. Each step and each permission requirement must be named.
Traps
- Confusing the CCJ's original treaty jurisdiction with its appellate jurisdiction.
- Saying the jury decides sentence or rules on law.
- Treating the Attorney General and the DPP as interchangeable.
- Assuming a further appeal 'as of right' to the final court.
- Ignoring statutory limits on magistrates' civil and sentencing powers.