AG looking at possible solutions to backlog
With close to 950 criminal cases backlogged in the court system, serious consideration is being given to how to remedy this situation, including abandoning prosecution on some of them.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Dale Marshall spoke to this yesterday afternoon, moments after touring the police and judicial complex at Cane Garden, St. Thomas, which will be the temporary home of the Criminal Courts while environmental challenges at the Supreme Court Complex are dealt with.
Noting that the backlog in both civil and criminal jurisdictions of the High Court is huge, he disclosed that figures from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) show there are 947 assize cases, and while not giving an exact figure for the civil cases, he said it is “even greater”. As such, he said concrete steps are being taken to address the matter, including the appointment of three temporary judges as was promised by the new administration during the election campaign, and he said they hope to bring the DPP’s Office up to its full staff complement as well.
“The DDP’s office is made up of eight prosecutors, but only seven filled, but even with those eight it is a major task to get through 947, 950 criminal cases. We recognise that is a situation that is unwieldy and likely to cause the criminal prosecution system to grind to a halt. We have already begun to engage both the Chief Justice and the DPP with a discussion on how we can help deal with some of this backlog,” he said.
Marshall added, “I think it likely that we are going to have to make a decision on whether some of the older cases will simply have to be abandoned by the Crown, but hopefully we will be able to put a mechanism in place which would see different cases receiving different treatments.”
The Legal Affairs Minister made it clear that they are not suggesting that all old cases, some of which date back to 2003, would get purged from the system, as many of those old cases have victims. To that end, he said they are developing a modality of which the goal is to have some element of restorative justice, while at the same time trying to bring that backlog down.
“There are weaknesses that are endemic with trying to prosecute a case that is 15 years old. You are relying on the memories of individuals who have either put those things behind them [or] simply can’t remember… You are not sure if a 15-year old trial is really benefiting the society or perhaps delivering justice in the way in which it should be done. But these are things we are going to continue to engage the public on.”
With that in mind, he said one of the three temporary judges will be dedicated to dealing with the criminal backlog, while the other two will be assigned to the Civil Courts. His comments came as he said that he and Chief Justice Sir Marston Gibson are in talks to see how best to move some of the civil cases off the docket as well. As such, he stated that in instances where it possible to divert cases to full mediation, it will be done.
“The Rules of the Supreme Court which came into force in 2008, we call them the new rules, they were intended to ensure that civil cases move through the system swiftly. Unfortunately, we have brought new rules, but we have put them in the same old wine skins and the concept of case management, which is new in my view, has not bitten into the conduct of civil litigation in the way in which it should be. I would say it would be in impossible to set a strict timeline for the conclusion of any civil trial, but with case management and holding lawyers to account, making people pay costs for delay and so on, we ought to be able to improve on those timelines,” he said.
Marshall said he looks forward to a “mutually satisfactory regime” which would see judges delivering decisions in a more timely fashion. The Attorney General made the point while also raising the matter of the length of time it takes judges to deliver decisions, reiterating his long time concern that they are taking too long. While acknowledging that some steps have been taken to improve that aspect of the system and that there are sometimes outside influences that result in delays, Marshall opined that justice delayed is justice denied and therefore maintained the issue had to be fixed.
“I don’t want to be seen as being overly critical of our Judiciary and I commit to you [Chief Justice] and to the Judiciary that everything that can be provided by the Attorney General’s office to make their work easier and to allow them to function more efficiently, I will move the earth to provide. But at the same time, I not only represent a constituency with people who have cases before the court, I think I represent all of Barbados as a Minister, and if the court system is not going to work in the interest of Barbadians, then you could as well wait for anarchy to set in,” Attorney General Marshall stated. (JRT)