Chief Justice Leslie Haynes says the two recent appointments to the judiciary will allow for the implementation of new strategies to alleviate the existing backlog in Barbados’ court system.
He made these remarks at the swearing-in ceremony for Justice of Appeal, Victoria Charles-Clarke, and High Court Judge, Bryan Lawson Weekes, at State House, yesterday.
“We now have a full complement of judges, and it’s up to the judiciary now to do their work,” he stated.
When asked about judge-alone trials, the Chief Justice pointed out that they had already been introduced regionally. He said while there are many measures to ease the backlog in the judiciary, judge-alone trials are only one of the ways to tackle it.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with a judge-alone trial. It’s been instituted in many Commonwealth countries and certain attorneys will look at it from the point of view of their clients; some attorneys will like it, some attorneys will not, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with judge-alone trials,” he stressed.
While Chief Justice Haynes admitted that he did not know the extent of the backlog, he disclosed that status hearings have also been implemented to reintroduce cases and matters that appear to have “fallen through the cracks” back into the court system.
He explained how the status hearing process is supposed to work. The Master of the High Court assesses the case and determines whether documents have to be filed and whether the matter is ready for trial or pretrial review, or should stay with the Master. The Chief Justice receives a report from the Master and assigns the judge to deal with the matter.
The Chief Justice also provided an analysis of how the status hearings should significantly decrease the number of backlogged cases.
“We’re dealing essentially with six matters, six status hearings by each Master; that’s 12 status hearings a week. That 10 weeks will take us to 120, 20 weeks will take us to 240…and if we keep going, I would think that by the end of the year, we should have well about nearly 500 cases back into the system.
“Do not feel that one fix will sort the system because the system really starts from the police to the preliminary inquiry or paper committal and it goes right through the system until sentencing. So that there are a number of areas that have to be looked at,” he said.