Research personnel needed in judicial system

Jan 21, 2009 News

President of the Guyana Bar Association, Teni Housty, has said that one of the positions advocated by several members of the profession is the need for research personnel and research assistants for judicial officers at all levels.
It is believed that this would reduce the time it takes for judges to write their decisions. Housty said that what takes up a lot of time in getting a decision, in some instances, is the level of research.
“We have a situation where the University of Guyana is producing a lot of quite capable persons who would be able to fill the gap as research assistants, or however you want to frame them, in the overall structure of the judicial system,” Housty stated.
According to him, there is need for several policy reforms, and the way to accomplish this is by strengthening linkages between judicial institutions.
He noted that there is a high level technical committee in which representatives from all the institutions that deal with justice participate.
Housty added that the overall mandate of that committee is to deal with the issues of policy that will be addressed in the reform of the justice sector in Guyana.
He stated that there are several levels on which one could look at the issue of policy reforms, and they all fall into different categories.
“There can be infrastructural reforms that allow for more timely discharge and dispensation of matters, so the increased use of electronics, information and communication technologies as tools can assist in the functional discharge of justice in courts.” According to him, there needs to be a clear an articulated policy of law revision.
“We need a clear policy of law reporting, reporting of the decisions of the court. The impact of having the CCJ as now the final court of appeal for Guyana means that we need more written decisions.”
He stated that there was a time when there were high-powered courts, and in a year, the reports would be 500 pages of written decisions, and as time progressed, that number has significantly decreased.
Housty pointed out that 11 matters went to the CCJ, 10 were appeals from the Court of Appeal, and each of them would have had to have written decisions; so there is need for a formal system of law reporting to be done.
“That is something that we private practitioners look at from different angles, but that is also a policy to deal with law reporting and law revision.”

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