Use of law students as interns, greater use of the Supreme Court Civil Procedure Rules and bringing judges out of retirement to act as mediators.
These were some of the ideas thrown out by the new Chief Justice to improve the legal system.
Making his first speech as the island’s top judge at the opening of the legal year 2011-2012, Chief Justice Marston Gibson said that after only four days on the job, he was not qualified to speak about the preceding legal year.
As a result, he said his speech would focus on “expressing ideas as to how I believe the function of the courts can be made more efficient and effective”.
Noting the island’s judiciary had been criticized by the Caribbean Court of Justice for tardiness in delivering its decisions, the Chief Justice said this could possibly be solved by decentralization of the decision-making process and a greater use of the Civil Procedure Rules.
He said judges could look at getting help in writing their decisions through the use of law interns.
“Our courts must see the UWI Faculty of Law, the Hugh Wooding and Norman Manley Law Schools, not as places that churn out new lawyers, but as an untapped resource. We pay a lot of money in our tax dollars to maintain the faculty and law schools, so why not?” he said to an audience that included Attorney-General Adriel Brathwaite, members of Parliament, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Solicitor-General, senior attorneys and members of the Bar Association, including its president.
He called the idea of student interns a “win-win-win situation” – judges would get assistance in researching and writing their judgments; the student would be exposed to the practical side of the law and the cost to Government would be minimal as his idea was that each student should get a stipend to cover travel to and from court.
The Chief Justice added that the Civil Procedure Rules permitted judges to appoint referees to hear cases and issue reports to them; to issue judgments where the court was of the opinion that one of the parties had no real chance of succeeding and there was no other reason why the matter should be disposed of in a trial, as well as allowing parties to engage in alternative dispute resolution (ADR).
And it was in ADR that the new CJ saw a role for retired judges.
“I believe that our retired judges are a rich resource waiting to be tapped and recalled to duty either as referees or as mediators or arbitrators.
“I am sure that some will not wish their well deserved retirement to be interrupted, but some will, and that is more than we have now.”