Chief Justice Sir Marston gibson unveiled a multi-pronged approach to the problems in Barbados’ justice system when he delivered the Sir Arthur Lewis Distinguished Lecture at the UWI Cave Hill Campus on Tuesday night.
Sir Marston identified several challenges to the delivery of justice in the traditional court system, and detailed a “systemic problem” with civil cases of which there had been a “crushing number of filings”.
He said the problem was exacerbated further with the limited number of magistrates and High Court judges available to dispose of the mounting number of civil and criminal matters being filed in the courts.
Of 21 663 cases filed in the magistrates’ courts in 2011, only 1 316 were disposed by the 10 magistrates available to hear these cases. In the High Court the same year there were 2 500 cases to be heard by eight High Court Justices.
