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Time and Transcendence: Narrating Higher Authority at the Caribbean Court of Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Lee Cabatingan
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Abstract

This article examines the relationship between time and authority in courts of law. Newness, in particular, poses an obstacle to a court's efforts to establish authority because it tethers the institution to a timeline in which the human origins of the court and the political controversies preceding it are easily recalled. Moreover, the abbreviated timeline necessarily limits the body of legal authority (namely, the number of judgments) that could have been produced. This article asks how a court might establish its authority when faced with such problematic newness. Based on extensive ethnographic research at the Caribbean Court of Justice, I demonstrate how the staff and judges at this relatively young tribunal work to create a narrative in which the Court transcends its own troublesome timeline. They do this by attempting to construct a time-transcendent principle of Caribbeanness and proffering the Court as a manifestation of this higher authority. The Court's narrative of its timelessness, however, is regularly challenged by far more familiar tales of its becoming, suggesting that in this court, as in all courts, the work of building and maintaining authority is ongoing.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 674 - 702
Copyright
© 2016 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

The author wishes to thank the President, judges, and employees of the Caribbean Court of Justice who permitted and participated in this research. Earlier versions of this article benefited from comments made by John Comaroff, Justin Richland, Susan Gal, Stephan Palmié, Costas Nakassis, Francois Richard, Erin Moore, Kate McHarry, Amy McLachlan, Meghan Morris, Joey Weiss, Angela Fillingim, and Hanna Garth, as well as the insightful comments provided by the anonymous reviewers and the editorial board at the Law & Society Review. The research for this article was funded by grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the National Science Foundation, and the University of Chicago.

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Cases Cited

Barbados Rediffusion Service Ltd. v. Mirchandani McDonald Farms LTD. [2005] CCJ 1(AJ).Google Scholar
The Attorney General Superintendent of Prisons Chief Marshal v. Jeffrey Joseph and Lennox Ricardo Boyce. [2006] CCJ 3 (AJ).Google Scholar

Treaties and Agreements Cited

Agreement Establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice (2001) Georgetown, Guyana: Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.Google Scholar
Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas Establishing the Caribbean Community Including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (2001) Georgetown, Guyana: Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.Google Scholar
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Web Sites Cited

Caribbean Court of Justice (2015) Available at: http://www.caribbeancourtofjustice.org (accessed 24 September 2015).Google Scholar
CARICOM (2015) Available at: http://www.caricom.org (accessed 24, September 2015).Google Scholar

Other Documents Cited

CARICOM (2003a) What it is What it does, Revised Edition. Georgetown, Guyana: Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.Google Scholar
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