Attorney General Dale Marshall has lamented that there are about 500 sexual offences cases awaiting trial in court.
His hope is that the steps Government has taken to reduce an overall backlog of 1 800 cases in the justice system, including facilitating the appointment of more judges and prosecutors, will help resolve the situation.
Marshall was speaking while leading off debate on the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2024 yesterday in the House of Assembly.
“Sexual offences is one of those things people don’t like to like to talk about, but the number of sexual offences cases simply must be brought down in exactly the same way that we are bringing down the number of firearm cases to be tried, the number of murder cases to be tried and I am satisfied that this administration is making a dent,” he said.
“I am sorry to all of the individuals, both men and women, whose cases have been languishing in the system for many years but we are getting there, and we are committed to getting there.”
The Minister of Legal Affairs reminded Barbadians that “until we came to Government, there were only two judges doing criminal work and . . . those judges didn’t do criminal work all the time”.
This number was increased to five and then eight. He also said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) office “only had eight prosecutors when we came to Government, today they have 20”.
Marshall noted that “the number of sexual offences cases has always been an inordinately large percentage”.
“The last figures I got indicated that we had . . . almost 500 sexual offences cases awaiting disposal,” he said.
“Only in the last week or two, the courts disposed of a sexual offences matter where the actual offence took place well over a decade before now. I cannot countenance a situation where somebody gets raped 15 years ago and is now asked to come to court and give evidence of that rape,” he said.
Marshall asked Barbadians to “understand what a significant transformation has taken place in the matter of criminal justice reform . . . for the stated purpose of making sure that cases go through the system quickly, go through the system with a minimum of friction, go through the system so soon that people don’t have [to be] scratching their memory ten [to] 15 years later.” (SC)
