A case of chronic shortage

Feb 22, 2014 Editorial

Recently, there has been a lot of hostility toward and disagreement with the decisions taken by both the magistracy and the judiciary. In fact, not since the trail of people for the crimes committed during the reign of the kick-down-the door bandits has there been so much attention to matters in the court.
And it is not that there have not been cases that grabbed the attention of the media. For example, there was the trial of those accused of killing a young goldsmith and taking away his money. They were soldiers and in the end they got the death penalty.
But there were others who were caught up in that same crime. There were the policemen who decided that they would steal some of the money that had been stolen by one of the soldiers. Surely the nation should have been interested in the outcome of that case. Sadly, hardly anyone remembers. Perhaps the matter is still languishing in the courts.
Then there were those who snatched the payroll for the Guyana Sugar Corporation. Quick action by the police led to the recovery of every cent. Two people were killed but the rest had their day in court. That issue, too, seems to have fallen off the map and no one is asking questions. More recently, we hear some of the names of the people held in that robbery been sought by way of wanted bulletins.
The reason for the non-reporting of these incidents is because there is a shortage of magistrates and of judges. Many of these cases are called and put down, mostly because the magistrates have a remarkably busy schedule. Their diaries are overcrowded because they are so few. On many occasions they are glad when lawyers seek adjournments. The result is that these cases remain incomplete for a long time, sometimes for so long that witnesses and defendants alike, disappear.
These cases run cold. On many occasions we have had at least four different magistrates hearing one case. One would start hearing the matter and then leave the bench only for another to restart the entire matter. This has happened so often that many of these cases had to be nolle prosequi ; people who might have been guilty of a crime being allowed to go free.
The situation with judges is no different. On Wednesday at the ceremony to honour her for her contribution to the jurisprudence both in her native Guyana and in the Caribbean, Justice Desiree Bernard spoke of a shortage of judges that existed at the turn of the Century.
She said that way back then she noted the shortage and hoped for a change in the fortunes of the High Court. More than a decade later this is still the case. As she saw it, the Chief Justice is working miracles to clear the backlog.
At one time Chancellor of the Judiciary Justice Carl Singh had cause to call on his judges and magistrates to refuse unreasonable or unjustified requests from lawyers. And indeed, lawyers, being aware of the length of time some matters take in the courts, would seek to stall.
And so we come to another issue in the court that grabbed the headlines. Being as short as we are of judges both in the High Court and in the Court of Appeal, there was scope for the Judicial Service Commission to appoint people from outside the region. A Guyanese applied and was appointed to the Court of Appeal.
This new appellate judge has had to resign because of an issue he had in another jurisdiction. That he has gone to defend himself against whatever allegation there is can be understood. But where would his replacement come from? Lawyers are reluctant to present themselves as magistrates and judges. As Justice Desiree Bernard said, it is a case of these lawyers being reluctant to give up their lucrative practice.
The solution rests with us importing judges but then again there could be other problems. The foreign recruit would not be au fait with local customs and norms and so his decisions would be out of kilter with the objective reality.

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A case of chronic shortage

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