by Emmanuel Joseph
Most of the country’s criminal lawyers have withdrawn their practice in all the courts housed in the newly refurbished Henry Forde and David Simmons Legal and Judicial Complex on Coleridge Street, The City.
Their action is to press their demands for proper parking access for the attorneys conducting business in the complex nearly a year after the remodelled facility was opened, Barbados TODAY has learned. The Criminal Law Committee of the Barbados Bar Association Council took the decision with immediate effect.
Attorney General Dale Marshall described the action as surprising, unfortunate and extreme.
A letter from the committee to the Registrar of the Supreme Court Sharon Deane, dated November 6, gave her until Monday to have the matter rectified, failing which the legal practitioners would stage a peaceful protest to include “either significant tardiness in attending court” or refusing to work in the complex.
The Attorney General, Chief Justice Sir Patterson Cheltenham and Chief Magistrate Ian Weekes were copied on the correspondence.
The committee’s convenor, Martie Garnes, told Barbados TODAY that a recent incident involving a senior counsel who experienced problems parking on the compound prompted the lawyers to escalate their protest to immediate action.
He said the committee had previously expressed disappointment at the lack of access and inadequate parking facilities for the Coleridge Street complex that was the original seat of the nation’s major criminal, traffic, magistrate, high courts and registry before the Supreme Court Complex was built at Whitepark Road in 2009.
“Despite the Barbados Bar Association making similar representations on two previous occasions to the powers-that-be and the Criminal Law Committee making our grievances known to the public on behalf of the criminal law practitioners, attorneys are now left with no choice but to absent themselves from the complex in a form of peaceful protest,” the committee convenor said.
“Attorneys are an integral part of the justice system and, as such, parking should be provided for them to conduct their business in the courts.
Attorneys were promised vehicular access since November 2022 and now, a year later, we are still seeking this most reasonable request.
“The attorneys have taken the stance that enough is enough and will not attend any of those courts until the situation is remedied immediately.
It is quite unfortunate that the situation has escalated in this way, but their patience has waned thin,” Garnes added.
“We have now escalated it to this point where we… let all of the magistrates, all of the judges know we are not going back down there. So, basically, everybody that practises criminal [law] will not be turning up there.”
Late Friday, Attorney General Marshall told Barbados TODAY the lawyers’ action was extreme.
“I am truly surprised that such a simple matter could evoke such an extreme reaction to a situation that has been common to this court complex — and to Bridgetown generally — for more than half a century,” he said.
Marshall recalled the days when the Forde- Simmons Complex housed the entire judiciary and its staff, including the Registration Department, four Magistrates Courts and the Civil Office, “and there was no parking for lawyers then”.
“In those days, in fact, barely 15 years ago, everybody walked to court. Sir Elliot Mottley, Sir Frederick Smith, Alair Shepherd and LeRoy Inniss all walked to court. The young turks like Michael Lashley and Andrew Pilgrim also walked to court. They all walked with their books and their files.
“And now, because there is no parking, attorneys are taking protest action by deciding not to represent their clients in those courts or to be tardy for court? That is unfortunate. And I say it is unfortunate because just 50 metres away at the Supreme Court complex, there is dedicated parking for lawyers. In fact, only recently we increased the number of dedicated parking spaces for attorneys by 50.”
The government’s chief legal advisor argued that while attorneys doing business at the Henry Forde and David Simmons Legal and Judicial Complex may consider it inconvenient to walk 50 metres from the Supreme Court Complex’s parking lot, they may give some thought to the fact that across Bridgetown, workers park in paid parking lots and walk to work.
“That is the nature of working in capital cities all over the world,” the Attorney General suggested.
After several months of remodelling, the Coleridge Street courts were renamed for former attorneys general Henry Forde and David Simmons and reopened on November 18, 2022.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
