Tough lessons for legal fraternity

President of the Barbados Bar Association Rosalind Smith-Miller believes that the judiciary should have been better prepared to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Describing the initial seven-week, 24-hour lockdown as “chaotic”, Smith-Miller said it was unfortunate systems were not in place to allow for the smooth running of court.

The Supreme Court was shut down and only recently commenced virtual hearings.

The president said the fact that lawyers were not deemed as essential workers also presented challenges.

“While there was willingness on the part of both lawyers and judges to work on certain matters that could lend themselves to virtual hearings, at one point the lawyers were on lockdown and couldn’t get into their offices to get their files. Some of the court files would not have had on anything other than the lawyer’s office contact information and the lawyers were not in office so communication was a challenge.

“We tried to find a mechanism by which lawyers could reach out to the registry and give that kind of contact information. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it was a case where we would have loved to have the case heard virtually but there is no private space in your home and you can’t be doing trials with children running around in the background and keeping noise. There was no privacy,” Smith-Miller admitted.

“Nobody was expecting it [COVID-19] so there were no systems in place to deal with it. It is being dealt with now, after the fact, but it’s been a little chaotic in that regard but everybody is trying to do their best to keep things going and to identify challenges and find solutions.”

However, Smith-Miller said there was a silver lining in that if a similar situation were to recur authorities would be better prepared.

She said the use of technology would now be implemented on a wide-scale basis throughout the courts.

“It may not necessarily be a health issue. If we had systems in place when we had the sick buildings two years ago and everybody had to move out of the Supreme Court Complex, we would have been able to draw on those systems now and we wouldn’t have been caught flat-footed to the same extent that we are now.

“So the solutions that are being identifiednow are being done with a view to the future. Some of it is that this is simply more efficient and we should have been doing it ever since regardless of a crisis. Suppose it was a hurricane, suppose it was a sick building situation again, suppose it was any other kind of challenge,” she questioned.

Smith-Miller said the judiciary and members of the Bar Association had been collaborating to find solutions going forward.