Independent Senator Monique Taitt on Wednesday built a strong case for authorities to get the court system right, declaring that the wheels of justice are not turning speedily or effectively.

The practising attorney-at-law – who declared herself a Queen’s Counsel, insisting that she is not a Senior Counsel or King’s Counsel – told the Upper Chamber on day three of debate on the Appropriation Bill 2024, that there were several areas affecting the administration of justice that must be corrected.

Turning her scrutiny on the state of affairs in the Supreme Court, Taitt said the word backlog was synonymous with the Supreme Court and while there had been a lot of “long, long talk” on the issue, there remain frustrating challenges.

“So, I’m asking what is the government’s plan to deal with the vexing backlog?”

Taitt noted that while the number of judges assigned to the Supreme Court has moved to 13, judges still have heavy case loads and this is compounded by an inadequate number of judicial assistants.

“The court list has been reduced from an average of 20 cases per day to 10. But then recently I saw one of the judges had a court list of 14 cases allocated to her and these are cases per day, not per week; this is per day – ten, eight, nine per day, five days a week.

“We have judicial assistants allocated to the judge. But here’s the thing, the judges are sharing the judicial assistants. So, if two judges need a judicial assistant, somebody’s gonna get trumped. Every judge should have their own judicial assistant…. There can be no sharing because you’re either going to have a judicial assistant that is torn between who they are going to work for or, worse, in our world, seniority trumps everything else.”

“If you need judges to perform and function, you have to make it make sense,” Taitt insisted.

Describing as “unfair” the practice of giving a judge leave to deliver decisions, she added: “What is that? That is not making any sense. It’s not fair. It really isn’t fair. You have to give them the space to function, 10 cases and decisions and then you put a time limit of six months on the decision. No!”

An outspoken Taitt also quashed complaints being levelled by attorneys against judges, saying it was “abhorrent.”

“I do not think it should be the purview of attorneys to make complaints about judges…. If it has to do with productivity, in every other environment, the employer deals with it. How we get to be in it? No, no, no. And don’t even tell me about letting the client do it because then you want that same judge to deliver a judgment. How?” she said.

Taitt proposed that a key way to tackle the ongoing challenges is to let judges have a greater say on how the system should function.

“I also believe that for the system to work, there cannot be people in an office making decisions for people who have to work the system. I believe that there ought to be serious frank and comprehensive consultations with the persons who have to work the system, i.e. the honourable judges of the Supreme Court of Barbados. We will never know all of the issues that they have unless we have them sit and tell us what they are so that you can create an environment that they can produce. They can tell you if what you are asking them to do is reasonable and doable,” she suggested.

Taitt underscored that other stakeholders should be involved in the process to improve the court system.

(SD)

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