King Delivers Judicial Training Seminar

20 February 2025

On 20 February 2025, GCDC Deputy Director Professor Jeff King delivered a judicial training seminar to the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO), in conjunction with the University of the West Indies (MonaLaw) and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The seminar, titled ‘Social and Economic Rights: Constitutional Design and Adjudication’, was held in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the CCJ, with most of its judges in attendance. The event formed part of the Caribbean Public Law Dialogues organised by MonaLaw and a series of events by the CAJO aimed at enhancing the administration of justice in the Caribbean.

In the seminar, Professor King highlighted lessons from South Africa and Brazil in adjudicating social rights, discussed how lawyers and judges can be heedful of social rights in public law cases, and presented his answer to the question ‘Will constitutional social rights be attentive to discrimination and endemic social exclusion?’ The discussion was timely, coming just a few months after constitutional reform bodies recommended the inclusion of justiciable social and economic rights in the Constitutions of Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados.

Commenting on the event, Professor Tracy Robinson of MonaLaw stated,

‘Professor Jeff King delivered his arguments about constitutional social rights and responded to a range of questions about the design and adjudication of social rights with his distinctive clarity, evenness, and reflection … I anticipate that the conversation with Prof King will become a significant juncture and resource in our contemporary debates about social and economic rights in the Commonwealth Caribbean.’

Professor King is the author of the award-winning book Judging Social Rights (Cambridge University Press 2012), which makes the case for constitutionalising social rights as a means to advance social justice. In the book, he argues that when enforcing such rights, judges should adopt a theory of judicial restraint structured around the principles of democratic legitimacy, polycentricity, expertise, and flexibility. The book won the 2014 Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship and has been described as a ‘stimulating and comprehensive [addition] to the burgeoning case for enforceable economic and social rights’.

Other speakers at the seminar were the Hon Mr Justice Peter Jamadar, Judge of the CCJ and Chair of the CAJO; and the Hon Mr Justice Westmin James, Judge of the High Court of Trinidad. The event garnered an impressive and diverse group of participants from 20 Caribbean states and territories. Participants included appellate judges; superior court judges; summary court judges; court registrars; judicial counsel; lawyers, students, and teachers from several legal education institutions; constitutional commissioners; and civil society leaders.