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On last night’s news, we showed you how judges of the Caribbean Court of Justice arrived at the Supreme Court in person to preside over a hearing between the Maya of Southern Belize and the Government. 

Normally, that would have happened via teleconference and the judges would have been all the way in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the headquarters of the CCJ. 

But the court is in Belize for the 6th Biennial Conference of the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers. The Belize Judiciary is hosting the conference for the very first time. It is a major 2 and a half-day event, where jurists from all over the Caribbean have come together to update themselves on the latest legal learning. 

They invited the press for the first day of the conference and 7News attended. Daniel Ortiz reports:

The River Hall at the Biltmore Plaza Hotel was very busy today: the staging ground for the 6th Biennial Conference of the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO).

Jurists from all over the Caribbean converged in Belize to exchange knowledge and wisdom with their colleagues.

Hon. Kenneth Benjamin - Chief Justice of Belize
"It gives me immeasurable pleasure to join the Right Honourable Prime Minister in welcoming you all, visiting judicial officers from the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, Canada, and the United States to Belize on the occasion of the 6th Biennial Conference of the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers. Today is a historic day in Belize, for never before have so many judicial officers gathered within its shores. This day will surely be recorded in the annals of the history of this beautiful land."

CAJO’s main goal is to provide continuing education to regional judges:

Hon. Justice Peter Jamadar - Chairperson, CAJO
"The role of CAJO is really to bring judicial officers from all across the Caribbean together for the purposes of continuing education. That’s a summary of what the role is. This conference is about bringing them together, and we have from all over the region and putting on a program that covers a wide variety of topics that are relevant to the region, to particular territories, and to judicial officers. The conference runs from today until Saturday at lunchtime. So, that’s 2 and a half days, and the range of topics run from pre-trial delay, judicial stress, gender-sensitive adjudication. It covers things like criminal trials, the rule of law, the indigenous people’s rights. It covers the environment, delay - so it’s a whole range of things."

Hon. Justice Adrian Saunders - President, CCJ
"Judicial stress is one of the things we also cover because we try to look at the judicial officer as a whole person. So, we try to deal with the judicial officer’s efficiencies, with their competence, with the level of public trust that they can get, and also with their mental and physical health."

Rt. Hon Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"The whole purpose - the reason for being - of the organization is a first-class one, continuing education for judges so that the quality of justice can always be at a level of which we in the region can be proud."

And for this conference, the organizers chose a somewhat controversial theme for the event: “Judicial Integrity - the Pathway to Public Trustâ€￾.  As viewers are aware, the judiciary is the custodian of the rule of law, and they act as the referees in the courts, ensuring fair-play among disputing litigants. Prime Minister Barrow stressed that in his prepared remarks, and he noted that even his government administration has received unfavourable judgments.

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow
"I get a chance to pay respect to all of you for the job you do. But, I also get a chance to reiterate my administration’s fealty to the equation that obliges us always to uphold the court’s role as protector and guardian of our constitution and the rights of our citizens."

"There are clearly times when administrations will go too far. All sectors in our society, therefore, including the executives themselves, ought to be grateful for the checks that judicial officers impose on either a genuine governmental mistake or deliberate overreach. I therefore freely, instinctively, and enthusiastically salute the position of the judiciary at the pinnacle of our rules-based society. Thus, notwithstanding what sometimes appears to be the preponderance of cases in which my administration comes out on the wrong end of court judgments, I praise the courts, and wouldn’t have it any other way. Well perhaps, that’s taking it a bit too far, but you get my drift."