In-person trials to return to High Court

In-person jury trials are set to return to the High Courts from June 1, Justice Randall Worrell disclosed Wednesday.

The judge made the comment as he dealt with a case which will reportedly go the route of a trial.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, most cases on the High Court’s docket were being conducted virtually via the Zoom platform. There were also a number of cases that were also done at the Supreme Court complex in Whitepark Road. But the pandemic halted cases that needed to be heard before judge and jury.

Attorney General Dale Marshall in a recent interview with Barbados TODAY said that the judicial system had significantly improved with the addition of new judges despite the challenges brought on by COVID-19.

Back in 2019, a number of judges were sworn into office in a bid to reduce the large backlog in the court system and expedite the movement of cases.

Marshall told Barbados TODAY: “I am pleased with the initiatives in the court. You will know that we had swelled the ranks of our judges from 13 to 20. There have been some challenges because COVID obviously meant that a lot of hearings that would have taken place had to be stopped from time to time because a member of staff would have to quarantine and so on.

“But generally, because we have had to cut down on face-to-face court activity and rely more and more on technology there would have been some challenges, so the progress we would have liked to have made has been slowed down significantly because of the impact of COVID on our court system.

“We are returning slowly again to a state of normalcy. Face-to-face jury trials will resume in the very, very, near future because obviously our ability to conduct High Court criminal cases would have been affected because of the inability of us to have a jury present given the COVID situation. That is being addressed.”