IF MY MEMORY is accurate, for as long as I have been able to speak, my mouth has been running me into trouble. Since I have been in journalism, my fingers have been performing the same role, basically telling anyone who would read what my mouth would have said.
And here I go again.
In my early days as a reporter, I used to cover court. There were a handful of magistrates at District “A” and they were always busy. I could be wrong, but around that time in the High Court there were fewer than half-dozen judges, including the chief justice, and they rotated between initial trials and appeals.
Particularly at the High Court level, the number of presiding officers has doubled with dedicated justices of appeal, and there is a spanking new Supreme Court Complex, supposedly with modern technology. Anecdotally, it sometimes seems like there are more lawyers in Barbados now than criminals.
Yet in the face of all this, we have a justice system that functions like molasses running uphill – only there is no sweetness to it.
So I will ask it again: How can you have any system run and staffed by some of the brightest and best educated minds the country has produced, but with such a horrible reputation for service delivery? And it appears to be getting worse rather than better.
Just to test the veracity of what I have said so far, can anyone from the justice system tell the country how many cases, of any kind, have been heard since the court year started this month? In fact, tell us how many cases have been started and completed for the year.
One would have had to be living under a rock for the past two decades to be surprised by the criticism last week by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) of the conduct of business of the local courts. Anyone who has ever walked by or driven past Whitepark Road or Coleridge Street, knows that no private entity operating for profit could produce such results and remain in business.
But let me let the CCJ speak for itself:
“Regretfully, we are forced to comment once more on the excessive delay that characterises many cases coming to us from Barbados. These proceedings [the case on which they ruled] commenced in 1998, some 17 years ago, when on 24th June, 1998, a generally endorsed writ was filed by Walsh.
“The substantive hearing in the High Court commenced on 7th February, 2000, and after a three-week hearing, the trial judge reserved judgment. After several requests for the delivery of the High Court judgment, the trial judge finally gave his decision on 8th June, 2005 – more than five years after the substantive hearing.
“Ward filed his appeal in relation to the High Court judgment on 18th July, 2005, and the appeal was eventually heard on the 20th and 21st September, 2011 – over six years later. Over a year later, the Court of Appeal issued its judgment on 28th November, 2012.
“This type of delay imposes hardship on the litigants. This is a case where the hardship is obvious.
“The delay also reflects adversely on the reputation and credibility of the civil justice system as a whole, and reinforces the negative images which the public can have of the way judges and lawyers perform their roles.”
Mere mortals may not be able to understand, but we could do with an explanation of why it would take a judge five years to deliver his decision.
The rest of the country, like me, might also be too simple of mind to understand, but still, please tell us why in modern Barbados it would take six years for an appeal to be heard.
But the CCJ did not stop there with its criticism:
“The unfortunate frequency of our lament suggests that the problem is systemic. In Barbados Rediffusion Service Limited v Asha Mirchandani (No. 1), President de la Bastide (as he then was) said: ‘We would be failing in our duty if we did not express our strong disapproval of judicial delays of that order. They deny parties the access to justice to which they are entitled and undermine public confidence in the administration of justice’.
“In Yoland Reid v Jerome Reid, Saunders JCCJ said: ‘This is the second time we have had occasion to call attention to inordinate delay in the delivery of judgments in Barbados. We trust that effective remedial action, if not already taken, will now be taken to ensure that judgments are delivered within a reasonable time as required by the Constitution of Barbados’.
“In Sea Havens Inc. v Dyrud, Hayton JCCJ said: ‘This is a most unsatisfactory situation that needs to be remedied and we trust that the new Civil Procedure Rules will considerably improve matters’.
“In O’Leen Colby v. Felix Enterprises, Hayton JCCJ referred to the approach of the English Court of Appeal in Bond v Dunster Properties Ltd, where Arden LJ posited: ‘This extraordinary delay clearly called for an apology and, if any existed, an explanation of the mitigating circumstances’.
“In System Sales Ltd. v Brown-Oxley and Suttle, President Sir Dennis Byron noted: ‘The court deplores the fact that parties are denied justice in a timely manner, and recalls that this must bring the administration of justice into disrepute and undermine public confidence’.
“The consistent need for the repetition of this disapproval, and over such a long period, of the delays in the system accompanied by calls for remedial action makes the situation extremely deplorable. Reaction can no longer be put off.
This is an aspect of the judicial role for which there should be accountability. We urge the judiciary to take steps to address the problem of delay in the judicial process and ensure that citizens enjoy the benefit of the constitutional promise of a fair and expeditious resolution of disputes.”
All that is left for me to do now is await the outcome of the next judgment from the CCJ, which will no doubt speak to a continuation of this criticism.
And why do I say that?
Twenty-four hours after this stinging criticism, so many of the important people from our judiciary met at Whitepark Road to welcome the latest crop of lawyers to the Bar, and we heard so many things, but not a word about what the CCJ has said. It was like – who cares?
But I could be wrong. I can think of at least one case that will not spend decades bogged down in judicial red tape.