THIS WEEK we have had the announcement from Superintendent of Prisons, Lieutenant Colonel John Nurse, that more than one-third of persons being held at Dodds Prison are on remand. The upshot of this is that neither the prison nor those incarcerated have a clue as to how long they will be there. The reason? Inefficiency of the court system.
Even more unbelievable is the fact that no oneinvolved in the administration of the justice systemcan say with any certainty just how many thousandsof Barbadians are walking around the country on bail,awaiting a trial date for criminal charges. The reason? Inefficiency of the court system.
If this country collected $100 every time a member of the Government, Opposition, judiciary, legal profession or any person doing business with the courts of Barbados complained about how slow and inefficient the system was, the Treasury would be overflowing.
If however, Government were forced to pay out a similar sum every time those with the power have failed to act, Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler would be even more challenged to find money to run our affairs.
The manner in which the judicial system hasfailed to respond to demands for greater efficiency in the recent past runs from being a disappointment to a national disgrace. Unless Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite and Chief Justice Sir Marston Gibsoncan, individually or collectively, urgently implement a sensible plan to get us out of this predicament, they should either resign or be removed.
When our most senior officials fail to produceresults, there really should be no challenge to sending them packing. There is nothing unusual about a Prime Minister firing appointees.
The office of Chief Justice and those of the judges that fall under them have always been held in the highest regard in this country. We may not always agree with their decisions, but never once has a judge in thiscountry been made to feel anything but national respect.
But we cannot blind ourselves to the reality thatjust three months short of five years after his appointment, none of the freshness, innovation or infusion of positive benefits that were promised with the appointment of Sir Marston have materialised.
Throughout this period only one man has been Attorney General and therefore responsible for oversight.
The incessantly spoken of drug treatment court and alternative dispute resolution initiatives have been implemented and have had no impact on the reduction of the backlog of cases. Our High Courts sit longer than ever before and there are more judges hearing matters than at any time in the last quarter century, but the accumulation increases. Bail for murder accused isnow being treated as routine by their attorneys because it is accepted that years will elapse before the trial ever gets going.
We have reached the point where even those who are in charge appear frustrated. Prime Minister Freundel Stuart told last week’s media conference that the routine release of prisoners on bail had “hit [him] for six”. The lawyers reacted with a barrage of criticism, saying it showed how out of touch he was.
Out of touch or not though, the Prime Minister was only verbalising what Barbadians have been saying for a long time. Our Magistrates’ Courts are in need of major modernisation; the system of handling criminal charges is more reflective of an era past than modern thinking; the slow processing of cases at the High Court level is amajor contributor; and our treatment of civil matters and the delivery of judgments years after the start of cases are more reflective of a Stone Age approach than a country begging its citizens to see themselves as on the verge of First World status.
The country has had enough of our broken and costly system of judicial coordination – and of the chatter of promises that has accompanied it.
