Redressing supremacy: challenging traditional notions of standing in the Commonwealth Caribbean Bills of Rights

Abstract

The standing requirements under the Constitutions of the Commonwealth Caribbean require an applicant to allege a contravention of the Bills of Rights ‘in relation to him’, so he must be personally affected. This would exclude lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex organisations from initiating constitutional challenges for which legal challenge by personally affected individuals are unlikely. This article will explore the scope of the supreme law clause in these constitutions, which provide that the constitution is the supreme law and any law inconsistent with it is void to the extent of its inconsistency, as an interpretative tool for the standing requirement and as a standalone redress clause.