The High Court of Grenada has ruled that the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) acted outside its constitutional authority when it appointed Justice Eddy Ventose to the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) Court of Appeal, declaring the appointment unconstitutional and quashing the decision. Justice Ventose was appointed to the appeals bench at the beginning of 2025, during the concluding months of Dame Janice Pereira’s term as Chief Justice and Chair of the JLSC.
The ruling stems from a judicial review brought by Grenadian King’s Counsel James A.L. Bristol, who challenged whether Justice Ventose met the constitutional requirement of having served as a judge for at least 5 years or practiced as an advocate for an aggregate period of at least 15 years before his appointment. The Court examined Section 5 of the West Indies Associated States Supreme Court Order, which sets out the qualifications for appointment as a Justice of Appeal.
In his judgment, Justice Raulston Glasgow rejected the narrow interpretation advanced by Bristol that advocacy is limited to courtroom appearances. At the same time, however, he also rejected the broader position advanced by the JLSC and Justice Ventose that virtually all law-related work, including academic teaching, legal research and consultancy, should qualify as advocacy.
Instead, the Court held that modern advocacy extends beyond oral appearances to include litigation related work directly connected to presenting cases before the courts, such as preparing pleadings, drafting written submissions, preparing witness statements and other comparable litigation work.
Despite accepting a broader modern understanding of advocacy, Justice Glasgow found that the JLSC failed to properly verify whether Justice Ventose had accumulated the constitutionally required 15 years of qualifying advocacy experience before making the appointment. The judgment noted that the Commission relied largely on general descriptions of his professional career without obtaining sufficient evidence as to when and for how long he had actually engaged in qualifying advocacy work.
The Court found that the constitutional wording requiring a candidate to have “so practiced” imposed an obligation on the JLSC to satisfy itself that an applicant had in fact performed qualifying advocacy work for the prescribed period before being appointed. Justice Glasgow said it would have been appropriate for the Commission to require evidence identifying cases in which an applicant had acted as an advocate and the years during which that experience was obtained.
Having determined that the constitutional requirements had not been met, the Court declared Justice Ventose’s appointment unconstitutional and issued an order quashing the JLSC’s decision. The judge also rejected arguments that relief should be refused because of delay or limited to a prospective declaration that would have allowed the appointment to remain in place.
The Court further ruled that previous judgments delivered by panels that included Justice Ventose would generally remain valid under the de facto officer doctrine, a longstanding legal principle that preserves decisions made by someone acting under the apparent authority of a public office, even where the appointment is later found to be invalid.