The backlog of cases in the courts has come under scrutiny from Chief Justice Zaila McCalla who has spoken publicly for the first time since her recent illness.
Addressing the 88th anniversary dinner for the St Ann-based law firm Murray and Tucker at Breezes Runaway Bay Golf Club Saturday night, McCalla pointed to what she described as "undesirable practices" that include the paucity of guilty pleas in criminal cases that contribute to the backlog of cases in the courts.
"The inadequacy of the number of judges and courtrooms and the delay in dealing with cases have led to certain practices on the part of both attorneys for the Crown and the defence over the years," McCalla said. "These practices, although understandable, are most undesirable."
Among the causes identified by McCalla is the practice by some lawyers of doing several cases on the same day, sometimes in different parishes, thus forcing the postponement of a case.
"When cases are set in this manner, if the trial of one case commences then, of necessity, all the others must be adjourned, as one person cannot be in two places at the same time and one attorney-at-law cannot try two cases at the same time save and except in specific instances where we have a joining of cases as permitted by law," McCalla stated.
Paucity of guilty pleas
"Another factor to be taken into account is what I would describe as the paucity of guilty pleas in criminal cases. There is a large number of cases to be tried and, in our system of justice, we have what is described as the presumption of innocence so that if an accused pleads not guilty, his case would have to be established by credible evidence."
She added: "Can you imagine, if more accused persons pleaded guilty, there would be less cases to try because, certainly, of the vast number of criminal cases to be tried, some of those persons must be guilty."
McCalla, however, stressed that the law presumes each accused person to be innocent until proven guilty and that "no accused ought to be coerced into pleading guilty".
Last month, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Senator Dorothy Lightbourne, in her contribution to the State of the Nation Debate in Parliament, said it would cost approximately $103 million annually to deal with the backlog of cases in the courts.
Lightbourne said, then, that several measures were being implemented to deal with the situation, including an increase in the number of court masters to at least four, amending legislation to increase the number of resident magistrates and the number of prosecutors in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Additional space is also being made available for the operation of the Supreme Court.
The chief justice also cited the following as contributing factors to case backlog in the courts:
✗ The failure of the police to attend court to deal with their cases; the case files not being completed.
✗ Witnesses or accused persons not in attendance at court; the granting of adjournment of cases by judges too frequently and sometimes too easily in many instances.
✗ Too many cases listed in one court to be heard on one day.