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More judges, fewer marshals

by Barbados Today
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While Government has been working feverishly to ease a troubling backlog of cases by increasing the number of judges in the Supreme Court, an inadequate number of key-supporting staff could slow down that process.

There’s an insufficient number of marshals, court clerks and police officers to service the additional courts set to hear matters at the White Park Road, St Michael complex to accommodate the additional judges.

This morning about a dozen marshals including the chief and duty chief were gathered in the lobby of the Supreme Court seemingly discussing how best to maximise their resources to manage the new court structure.

The development occurred approximately 24 hours after seven new judges were sworn in by Governor General Dame Sandra Mason and less than a year after dozens of court workers were sent home in Government’s austerity programme.

Attorney General Dale Marshall later told Barbados TODAY the situation had been anticipated and Government would be working to address it immediately.

“Financial provisions were made in the estimates for this year. So the recruitment of additional staff to service the court is being pursued and I think very soon all of those issues should be resolved,” Marshall said.

Three new courts are to be occupied by Justice Christopher Birch and acting High Court judges Madam Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell and Justice Carlisle Greaves. They are to be added to the two existing criminal courts bringing the total to five.

Barbados TODAY understands that three marshals are needed for each of those courts and while previously retrenched marshals were rehired, there are not enough to service the increased load.

Nevertheless, the AG has been adamant that despite the challenges facing the courts, Government needed to be cognisant that its spending power was still limited.

“Provision has been made for additional marshals to be recruited but certainly you would know we’re in the middle of a BERT (Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation) programme and we have to make do with the resources we have,” he contended.

“In some instances, the Ministry of Finance has made provisions to recruit some additional officers in the ranks of marshals, clerks, judicial assistants and so on but we don’t have the financial provisions to allow us to get there. So we are going to be allowed to recruit enough people so as to allow the proper functioning of the court.”

When asked whether retrenched workers will be given priority, he said: “Certainly the approach that I have instructed the registry staff to take is to do exactly that.

“In instances where people have been retrenched and working in those capacities, they will be the first to be called back. We lost three court marshals and they have been called back to work. That is the only fair way to approach it and that is the way this administration has indicated they will approach it from day one.” kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb

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