CCJ slams magistrate, appeal justices as woman wins landmark abuse case

By Emmanuel Joseph

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has delivered a scathing rebuke to a magistrate and the Court of Appeal here over their handling of a woman’s plea for a domestic protection order against her ex-partner with whom she shares a child.

Roxann Rachel Goddard took her case to the CCJ after local courts denied her a protection order against Abdul Aziz Akojee.

In a landmark, 269-page ruling that is certain to strengthen the protection of battered spouses and partners, the CCJ, the nation’s final appeal court, ruled in favour of the woman who challenged the Court of Appeal’s decision, which upheld the magistrate’s dismissal of her application for protection under the Domestic Violence (Protection Orders) Act. The justices also suggested that Caribbean governments set up special courts to handle domestic violence cases.

The CCJ chided the magistrate and the majority of the Court of Appeal for placing weight on the way Goddard had responded as a layperson about whether she belonged to the categories of “spouse”, “cohabitational relationship,” “domestic relationship,” or “visiting relationship” as defined by law.

“The approach of the magistrate and of the majority of the Court of Appeal is to be deprecated,” the CCJ justices declared as they overturned the Barbadian courts’ decisions regarding the woman’s plea for a domestic protection order against her former partner.

The CCJ said the magistrate and the appeal court’s majority both “agreed that a protection order was not granted to the appellant because she ‘took herself out of the definition’ by saying to the Magistrate that she was ‘none of these things’. It is regrettable that the magistrate should think that she had provided sufficient protection for the child by making an interim protection order for the child, but without making any order for the protection of the child’s mother in these circumstances.”

The judges emphasized that Parliament could not have intended such a restrictive approach in interpreting the amended Domestic Violence Protection Order Act. “Such a narrow approach,” the Caribbean tribunal added, “would leave the other exposed to the risk of violence without the realization that it was in the best interest of the child to protect the mother as well as the child”.

The CCJ reasoned: “Viewed through these lenses therefore, we arrive at the conclusion that the decision of the Magistrate upheld by the majority of the Court of Appeal that the appellant was not a ‘former spouse’ within…the amended Act, was wholly incorrect.”

The CCJ also ruled that imposing a time limit on an applicant’s capacity to make an application for a protection order after a breakdown in a cohabitational relationship, as decided by the majority of the Court of Appeal, would run counter to the “clear purpose” and policy objectives of the amended Act. “In addition, to construe ‘former spouse’ as limited by time without any specific provision to that effect contained in the legislation would give rise to an absurdity,” the CCJ ruled.

In response to the appeal case, the CCJ called for the establishment of specialized problem-solving courts in the Caribbean to deal in a sensitive and holistic manner with gender-based and family violence matters. The court emphasized the necessity for comprehensive training and sensitization of judicial officers and court staff in handling domestic violence cases.

The CCJ expressed its gratitude to the charity Operation Safe Space Movement for Change Inc., along with the International Centre for Advocates Against Discrimination Inc. and the UN Women Multi-Country Office – Caribbean, for their “invaluable data”, which significantly influenced the outcome of the case.

Attorney Lalu Hanuman for the appellant, Goddard, and  Anika N, Jackson, and Jared K. Richards, were the lawyers for the lower courts in the name of the Attorney General. Anya A.A. Lorde contributed to the case as amicus curiae (friend of the court) on behalf of Operation Safe Space Movement for Change Inc (OSS), Leah Thompson also served as friend of the court, acting for UN Women.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb