BARBADOS. CARIBBEAN COURT OF JUSTICE WON'T RESTORE EXECUTION ORDER

the new Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) made its first death penalty ruling, dismissing an appeal by the Barbados government that sought to restore execution orders for two convicted murderers. Barbados had asked the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice to impose the death sentences against Lennox Boyce and Jeffrey Joseph in what was widely seen as a test of the new court's willingness to uphold executions.
The Caribbean Court was inaugurated last year to replace the London-based Privy Council as the highest appellate court for many former British colonies in the region. Some Caribbean governments struggling with high crime rates hoped it would clear the way for the resumption of executions in the region, something the Privy Council has blocked in recent years.
Boyce and Joseph were convicted and sentenced to hang in 2001 in the murder of a 22-year-old man. The Barbados High Court commuted their sentences to life imprisonment last year, ruling they would be on death row for an inhumanely long time while they wait for their cases to be heard in the Washington-based Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. The lead lawyer for the Barbados government, Roger Forde, had argued that the Barbados Constitution does not make any provision for its citizens to petition international bodies.
Barbados had also asked the Trinidad-based court to overturn a precedent set by the Privy Council that requires executions to take place within five years of conviction. But the Caribbean court cited the passage of more than five years as a factor in its decision that the death sentences should be commuted.