Plea proposal

By Jenique Belgrave

Attorney General Dale Marshall is in favor of introducing plea bargains to Barbados’ justice system to help reduce the current backlog of criminal cases.

“I’ve had some discussions with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and in fact, I had discussions as recently as today with the Acting DPP and he has indicated that having plea bargaining legislation will be a great boon to the system, and it is something that I’m certainly prepared to (take) to Cabinet,” Marshall said.

Plea bargaining is a feature in the court systems of the United States and several European countries. It allows defendants in criminal matters to plead guilty to benefit from shorter sentences or to have their charges dismissed.

The AG’s comments came on the heels of comments from Judge Jacob Wit of the Caribbean Court of Justice, who at last month’s regional Crime and Violence Symposium in Trinidad and Tobago, made a case for the implementation of the practice.

Calling for a robust overhaul of the region’s justice system, Wit advised, “There needs to be much more plea bargaining. That is what the Americans do where 70 per cent of all the cases are plea bargained. That’s why they can get their cases done. That’s only very small here.”

Speaking on the sidelines of the second Criminal Justice Symposium at the Hilton Barbados on Monday evening, Marshall indicated that while the plea bargaining system is just one of the solutions being considered to bring down the mountain of cases clogging up the judicial system, the major issue with having this dealt with quicker is outdated legislation.

“To be very candid, a lot of our laws, and they’re not all old laws, some of them date back 20-25 years, some of them are older, but a lot of them have simply not kept pace with the developments of the law, or developments of technology. So something that might have been relevant only 10 years ago is really not so much relevant now.

“We have a very clogged up system that is typified by backlog. By now we have about 100 homicide trials that are waiting to be heard in the system…We have just shy of 300 relating to firearms. So we simply must get rid of the backlog and no matter how many judges we throw at the system, unless we change the underlying structures in terms of the legal framework, in terms of procedural framework, in terms of our staffing, our use of technology, we will simply not be able to achieve the kind of results that we want in terms of getting rid of the backlog,” the legal affairs minister stated.

He also disclosed that the stakeholders are in agreement with the expansion of the powers of magistrates to remove some pressure from the High Courts. However, he warned that this must be done strategically to ensure that the burden is not shifted from one court to another.

“We have to find ways and means of reducing the magistrates’ courts’ own backlog and there are a number of things that I think that we can look to do fairly quickly like introduce a ticketing system in relation to road traffic offences. This is actively being discussed, between myself and the minister. It is something that has been knocking around for a long time, but simply hasn’t happened and I think this is the time to do it,” he added.

During the first Criminal Justice Symposium in April, Prime Minister Mia Mottley suggested that the judiciary convenes a second meeting to thrash out all of the issues hampering the swift dispensing of justice in this country and reducing the growing backlog of criminal cases, stressing that the system is “going nowhere”.

jeniquebelgrave@barbadostoday.bb ]]>