temporary home

Officers attached to the District ‘D’ Police Station will have to wait a little longer to occupy their spanking new facilities at Cane Garden, St. Thomas, as the two Criminal Courts in the High Court system will be moved there for the time being.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Dale Marshall, made the disclosure while speaking to the media yesterday afternoon, after visiting the Cane Garden complex which also houses the District ‘D’ and ‘F’ Magistrates’ Courts, and is expected to provide temporary accommodation for the Coroner and Juvenile Court as well.

The move is necessitated by the environmental problems that have been plaguing the Supreme Court building from earlier this year, and Marshall said it will allow cases to be heard while those environmental issues are dealt with.

While apologising to the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF), who he noted is anxious to begin occupying the facility, for the inconvenience caused, AG Marshall said the RBPF has agreed for “the greater good to stand aside” and the courts should commence sittings there from next Monday. His comments came as he revealed that plans remain on stream for the Civil Courts to be housed not too far away at the Manor Lodge Complex in Green Hill, St. Michael.

“Happily this is a new facility that had not yet been occupied and it therefore means that the transition into this place from the Supreme Court building is somewhat easier. Obviously though we have had to spend quite a bit of money in getting it ready to function as a court,” he said.

In that vein, he revealed that Government has had to invest in new equipment to allow for bail applications to de done from the temporary location, in the same way it was done in the Supreme Court Complex at Whitepark Road, St. Michael, where the accused was not required to be physically brought to court. He explained that the equipment at the Supreme Court cannot conveniently be moved, and so they have had to make the additional investment.

“This facility we expect it to be up and running next week. As you can see the physical move of equipment [is] more less complete; one or two technological things I expect would be sorted out over the course of the next few days, but as of next week we would have our Criminal Court in the High Court jurisdiction up and running and also the Master. We know that getting to Cane Garden is going to be a bit of a challenge for some litigants, some individuals, but in this case better can’t be done,” he indicated.

Welcome move
Also on the tour was President of the Barbados Bar Association, Liesel Weekes, who told media personnel that the Bar Association is heartened by the move to Cane Garden for the criminal courts. She said it has been a major concern of theirs that accused matters could not be tried in a timely manner, particularly where those persons are on remand.

“It is in their interest and in pursuit of their constitutional right that they have access to justice, and we are happy that is going to restart as soon as next week. In relation to the civil aspect of things, it is unfortunate that we can’t start as we had previously hoped, which was the 20th of June, and that goal post is shifting a little bit,” she said.

Weekes added, “We do know that in trying to find solutions sometimes other issues may crop up so you can’t meet the deadlines that you hope to meet. We do think however that there are some ameliorating recommendations that have been made, that we would like to see taken out, because it would allow for some movement in the matters that are before the court without an actual building being assigned to it.”
Such, Weekes explained, are among the pressing matters she hopes to discuss with the Attorney General when the Bar Association meets with him early next week.
(JRT)