TIMELY JUSTICE is in store for those with criminal matters before the High Court, assures Director of Public Prosecutions Charles Leacock QC.
He said there was already evidence that the shift to the Voluntary Bill of Indictment procedure over the last year had been effective and contended that even more could be achieved if a multifaceted approach to the challenges in the court system were adopted.
Leacock was responding to the SUNDAY SUN’s query on why it takes years to bring a person to trial though the police would have enough evidence to arrest someone just days after the crime was committed.
The country’s top prosecutor said the high level of backlog in the system had much to do with current procedures, as well as a number of slow practices that had been allowed to take root.
He said that after someone was arrested and charged with an offence the police must prepare a file, which is essentially statements that would establish the evidence.
This takes about a year as they often have to wait for various reports from doctors, pathologists, toxicology or DNA results, and so on.
When the file is finally prepared, it goes to the Magistrates’ Court for a preliminary inquiry, which is a full dress rehearsal of the entire trial, where witnesses are called and may be cross examined by the defence. This process can take a year or two.
“That’s how it ends up at about three years,” said Leacock, who stressed that he couldn’t “tell the police how to prioritise how they prepare files”.
After that, the matter is committed by the magistrate and goes to the High Court. But before anything can go forward the handwritten depositions from the preliminary inquiry, which are often voluminous, must be typed and sent to his office so the person can be formally indicted.
Leacock said his office has requested the abolition of preliminary inquiries to speed up the system, but this had not yet happened legislatively.
He said they had sought to do more paper committals – where all of the statements are done like they are in the Magistrates’ Courts, but no evidence is led.
However, if the defence objects or the accused is unrepresented by counsel, that approach cannot be pursued.
He said with the cooperation of Chief Justice Sir Marston Gibson, he had been pursuing another option – the Voluntary Bill of Indictment. With this procedure, all the statements are prepared after the police prepares the file about a year after the offence takes place and someone was arrested and charged.
“Then we prepare an affidavit in these chambers and it is filed before a judge in the court. And if the judge reviews those statements on submissions from this department, they can then commit for a voluntary bill to be given.
“So for the last year or so I have done approximately 50 of those, especially murder cases and very large fraud cases like the Central Bank case, the Bulgarians, the Sagicor case . . . . That is how we were able to move those cases, some of which were stuck in the Magistrates’ Court for five to seven years,” said Leacock.
He said this was just one approach needed to speed up the delivery of justice. He would also like to see the creation of a criminal division of the High Court with three judges sitting continuously.
Leacock said this would stop accused from “forum shopping” where they constantly request adjournments in the hope of getting a particular judge to hear their case.
The prosecutor would also welcome firm dates being set for cases to minimise, if not eliminate, adjournments and situations where an accused claims he is still in the process of retaining counsel when his long-standing case is called.
“We have a current list of about 300 cases on the High Court’s calendar. With the best will in the world, you cannot do 100 or even 50 cases in a session of six months with two judges because, almost invariably, lots of cases are multiple accused – that is, more than one person is charged with the same indictment.
“And almost everybody will request the services of a lawyer, or the opportunity to retain a lawyer.
“The judges feel obliged, under the Constitution, to give them a chance to seek a lawyer and that is why you have cases lasting three years, four years, and are still not ready . . . because the defence is not ready. That is one of the stark realities,” he said.
And this situation is compounded by adjournments.
“In the past when there were not so many adjournments, the cases were set down and some days two cases were done. Murder cases were done in three days.
“Now we have a different culture, which is a far more permissive culture, and I think that is what has led to exacerbating the problem of backlogs,” said Leacock.