Cases being addressed quicker; six more judges to join the bench

As the judicial system battles with a caseload in the hundreds, Attorney General Dale Marshall is reporting that some litigants are noticing an improvement in the length of time it is taking for their civil matters to be resolved by the law courts.

With just under 2 000 civil cases being filed annually, Marshall gave an update on the judicial system at Wednesday’s Christ Church Speaks meeting, held at the Christ Church Foundation School, where several members of the public complained about issues with the system.

Noting that annually just under 2 000 civil cases are filed in the High Court, AG Marshall said that in addition to increasing the number of judges on the bench, the ruling Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration invested in digitizing the filing system among other initiatives aimed at improving the justice apparatus.

“Now one of the earliest things that we did, Prime Minister [Mia Amor Mottley], you would recall, we amended the Constitution to provide that misconduct on the part of a judge could be constituted by delay in delivering a decision for over six months. Now the truth is, no judges have been punished for that.

“Factors that involve punishing a judge for misconduct are one of the very last things that anybody would even think of doing, but we have tried to tighten up and make judges more accountable.

“It hasn’t entirely succeeded, but I can tell you that there are a large number of litigants who are singing the praises of the system because in some instances, cases have gone through quickly,” Marshall said.

Prime Minister Mottley reminded the gathering that 80 per cent of the murder cases before the law courts existed before June 2018 when her Barbados Labour Party administration was in office.

In fact, Mottley suggested that almost 80 per cent of the gun cases were for charges before she became Prime Minister.

She told the weekend meeting a recommendation had been made to Cabinet for another six judges to be added to the system.

But she suggested that too many cases are going before the court that do not need to be handled by a complex justice system, and can be solved through mediation once a transparent process is followed.

“If you are speaking respectfully about the fact that you have a problem with the delays in justice I get you, so do I. That’s why I have increased the number of judges twice in a way that no previous Prime Minister has probably done. So let’s be very clear about that.

“But I have explained enough to let you know that I can’t go in and administer justice. And I want you to know, regrettably, and I take no pride in this, yours is not the only one,” Prime Minister Mottley said in response to a query from a concerned constituent.

“That is why over the course of the time, different things have been done to literally deconstruct the rules of the Supreme Court. But the reality is that the society is far more litigious, maybe with good cause too, than it was before, so that the matters that have been coming before the court have increased exponentially,” Marshall added. (AH)