Judge advises magistrates to drop cases contributing to court backlog

Magistrates are being told by a High Court judge to have the courage to dismiss some of the cases that are adding to the backlog clogging up the judicial system.

Justice Carlisle Greaves noted that those cases with missing files especially, should be dropped from the court’s calendars.

“Stop waiting around on police, particularly in police cases, and dismiss them. You get three adjournments. You are not ready? Dismiss, and you would see how quick they would wake up and get those files. There is no more major contributor to the backlog than the frequency of adjournments,” he stated.

The judge said if this was done, within a year, there would be a significant reduction in the 16 000 cases before the magistrates’ courts.

“Magistrates’ courts are overflowing with a lot of cases either because the police don’t turn up with the files or the attorneys don’t turn up or the complainants don’t turn up after being summoned,” he stressed, calling such cases “ripe for dismissal”.

Noting that magistrates were often blamed for the backlog, he urged them to create a dismissals list of such cases and those where the “charge sheets are so written up there is hardly any room left on them”,

He made the comments recently in the No. 3 Supreme Court as Jedario Jelani Jacoby Murray’s sentencing had to be adjourned after the accused indicated to the court that he wanted another matter dealt with simultaneously but it remained in the Magistrates’ Court awaiting a file.

The Cherry Tree Lane Black Rock, St Michael resident had pleaded guilty to damaging a house belonging to Laurine Hoyte and using a firearm without a valid licence on September 14, 2021.

The matter was adjourned until January 26, 2024.