A Criminal Justice Reform Committee will be set up, and is expected to be jointly chaired, by Attorney General Dale Marshall and Chief Justice Sir Patterson Cheltenham.
This disclosure came from Attorney General Marshall, as he spoke to the media on Monday afternoon, during part two of the Symposium on the Criminal Justice System in Barbados, at the Hilton Barbados Resort.
In highlighting the work of the committee, he said it would be responsible for following up on initiatives the participants decided on during the discussions, as well as receiving feedback going forward.
“It is a committee that is being set up for the foreseeable future. This is not going to be a committee with a life of one, two or three years because there will always be a need for criminal justice reform. Hopefully, we will lick the backlog problem. But then there are going to be other issues that will arise….
“We may shift our focus from the courts to the police at another time; so I don’t see an end to the life of this committee. I think that how the criminal justice system works is something that always has to be under review. So certainly, for as long as I am in this office, I expect to see that committee working,” he stated.
Mr. Marshall noted that by the end of Monday’s discussions, he expected decisions to be made on important legislative items to be enacted.
He disclosed that some of the areas being considered were Judge Alone Trials, and amendments to the Evidence Act and Juries Act.
“To be very candid, a lot of our laws … have simply not kept pace with the developments of the law, or the developments of technology. So something that might have been relevant only 10 years ago, is really not so much relevant now…. By now we have about 100 homicide trials that are waiting to be heard…, so they just have to go before judges. We have just shy of 300 related to firearms, so we simply must get rid of the backlog.
“No matter how many judges we throw at the system, unless we change the underlying structures in terms of the legal framework, procedural framework, staffing and our use of technology, we will simply not be able to achieve the kind of results that we want, in terms of getting rid of the backlog,” the Attorney General indicated.
He insisted that the reform of the criminal justice system “is intended to keep Barbadians safe”, and stressed that ensuring cases go through the system quickly was part of the measures to help Barbadians stay safe.
Mr. Marshall pointed out that the introduction of a ticketing system with regard to road traffic offences was being actively discussed. He said this initiative had been around for a long time but had not been introduced.
“So, we are also going to be considering alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the context of criminal matters. Let’s put it this way – there has to be a role for ADR in a situation where the kind of offence that is complained of is relatively minor…. Sometimes you just need to get people to come back together and say, ‘well, I’m sorry, I made a mistake, it shouldn’t have happened, I’m apologising, can we be finished with this?” he surmised.
Participants at the symposia included members of the judiciary and magistracy, the Barbados Bar Association, and civil society.