RUSSEAU – The government of Dominica announced Tuesday that the Caribbean Court of Justice, or CCJ, will become the country’s court of final appeal starting this month.

“Certainly, as we indicated last year, this is an historic opportunity for Dominica. It would mean allowing more ordinary citizens to have greater access to the judiciary system,” Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a statement.

Dominica is one of 12 Caribbean Community member-states that use the CCJ as a court of Original Jurisdiction for interpretation and application of the treaty establishing CARICOM.

Skerrit said Dominica will now become the fourth CARICOM member – alongside Barbados, Guyana and Belize – to accept the Original and Appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ.

Twelve of the 15 Caribbean Community member-states are signatories of the CCJ: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

All 12 use the CCJ as a court of Original Jurisdiction for interpretation and application of the treaty establishing CARICOM, but several do not employ the CCJ as the court of final appeal in civil and criminal cases.

The Bahamas, Haiti and Montserrat are not signatories of the CCJ.