Kali­fa Clyne

The Min­istry of Jus­tice is in the process of re­view­ing and draft­ing poli­cies to treat with the re­form of the jus­tice sys­tem. Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney made the an­nounce­ment on Tues­day while speak­ing at a Ro­tary Club of Port-of-Spain meet­ing at Good­will In­dus­tries, Port-of-Spain. Ac­cord­ing to Vol­ney, these poli­cies would con­tribute to a speed­i­er sys­tem of crim­i­nal jus­tice. He said a num­ber of the pol­i­cy pre­scrip­tions had been ap­proved by the Cab­i­net and draft bills had been pre­pared and were ready to go to Par­lia­ment. Vol­ney re­vealed that the first act treat­ing with leg­isla­tive re­form would be the In­dictable Of­fences (Crim­i­nal Pro­ceed­ings) Bill.

This bill, he said, would re­place pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries in court cas­es with suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ings in the High Court. "It takes be­tween three to six years to get a com­mit­tal un­der pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries," said Vol­ney. He said the bill would al­low for a com­mit­tal for tri­al by judge and ju­ry with­in a three-month time frame, re­dound­ing to enor­mous cost sav­ings to both cit­i­zens and the state. He added that the change would al­so re­duce the work­load of mag­is­trates. He said the pub­lic would save mon­ey as "un­scrupu­lous lawyers" would be paid on­ly for the work they ac­tu­al­ly did. "The sys­tem is al­so ex­pect­ed to en­sure greater ef­fi­cien­cy as there will be the elim­i­na­tion of much lethar­gy and the back­log cur­rent­ly plagu­ing the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem," Vol­ney said.

He added that this would al­so re­duce the work­load of mag­is­trates and al­low for a more fo­cused ef­fort in the sum­ma­ry tri­al of crim­i­nal cas­es. Oth­er leg­is­la­ture ini­tia­tives by the Min­istry of Jus­tice are:

• re­form of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act which in­clud­ed a Na­tion­al Sex Of­fend­er Reg­istry;

• re­form of the De­oxyri­bonu­cle­ic Acid (DNA) Act;

• up­grade and equip­ping of the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre;

• amend­ment of the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vice Act;

• es­tab­lish­ment of a pa­role sys­tem and im­ple­men­ta­tion of new prison rules.

Vol­ney said the min­istry would al­so be con­tem­plat­ing a sys­tem of "ear­ly lim­it­ed re­lease" to en­able of­fend­ers with good be­hav­iour to en­gage in pro­duc­tive work on the out­side. He said ini­tia­tives would not be un­der­tak­en with­out stake­hold­er and pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion.