ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION will be rolled out in the island’s magistrates’ courts.
This was revealed by the island’s chief judge, Sir Marston Gibson, as he addressed the 16th annual conference of the Human Resource Management Association of Barbados at the Radisson Aquatica Resort yesterday.
“Everything we have done so far pre-supposes that we were going to start in the High Court, because those were the most complex cases, those were the cases where people were hiring lawyers and paying a lot of money and so we wanted to start in the High Court,” Chief Justice Sir Marston noted.
“But yesterday, one of the trainers said we really should start in the Magistrates’ Court because those cases are simpler and I’m convinced that is where we are about to begin,” he said.
Sir Marston revealed that 2 132 civil suits, 452 divorce cases and 1 086 probates of wills were filed in 2011, while 2 273 civil suits, 472 divorces and 1 193 probates were filed the following year.
Correspondingly, in the magistrates’ courts, he said 22 824 cases were lodged in 2011 and that number decreased marginally to 20 656 the following year.
He said if the cases were split evenly among the magistrates, each would deal with 2 226 cases per year.
If the same was applied to the judges of the High Court, each judge would have to preside over 457 new matters.“And this is ignoring the backlog,” Sir Marston said.
The Chief Justice added that magistrates’ courts were a lot less formal than “the rarified atmosphere of the High Court and Court of Appeal” and “you are starting with two or three pieces of paper which outline the entire nature of the case and each person’s claims whereas the High Court would have volumes”.
In addition, Sir Marston said most people did not think that alternative dispute resolution could be applied to criminal matters. However, he stressed, it could, and he gave an example of a successful mediation between a rapist and his victim.
“Instead of sentencing someone for committing criminal damage, make them pay for it or make them perform community service.
“If you put them in jail, you have to pay for them. Restorative justice as an alternative is better,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sir Marston admitted Barbados had been “dead last” in adopting the Civil Procedures Rules.
Trinidad adopted them in 1998, the islands of the Eastern Caribbean in 2000, Jamaica in 2002 and Barbados in 2008.
(HLE)
