Geisha Kow­lessar

While Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie has said the ju­di­cia­ry will work hard at im­ple­ment­ing mea­sures for the Ad­min­stra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Of­fences) Act 2011, in­clud­ing es­tab­lish­ing court­rooms and reg­istries, some se­nior lawyers are scep­ti­cal. The at­tor­neys said for the process to func­tion ef­fi­cient­ly, the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) must be prop­er­ly staffed and equipped. Dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the new law term at the Hall of Jus­tice Port-of-Spain, on Mon­day, the CJ said the ju­di­cia­ry would meet the dead­line of next Jan­u­ary, when the rest of the act is due to be pro­claimed.

The Chief Jus­tice said the process should not be rushed, as that would cre­ate new back­logs. He said there were ap­prox­i­mate­ly 14,000 new crim­i­nal mat­ters filed in the court sys­tem an­nu­al­ly, which the con­tro­ver­sial act sought to ad­dress. But prepa­ra­tions have been de­scribed as a work in progress by court pro­to­col and in­for­ma­tion man­ag­er Jones P Madeira. Madeira al­so said every ef­fort was be­ing made to put mea­sures in place to meet the dead­line.

"We have an im­ple- men­ta­tion team look­ing at all the re­quire­ments and we are look­ing at a sched­ule be­fore Jan­u­ary," he said. "We are look­ing at the us­age of ex­ist­ing facil­ties at least for the mo­ment." How­ev­er, with the year swift­ly com­ing to a close, Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal, said she would be very sur­prised if all mea­sures were im­ple­ment­ed in time.

"The ju­di­cia­ry has a very long way to go, and they have to do many things with­in three re­main­ing months," See­ta­hal said. She asked what was the sta­tus of the ap­point­ments of mas­ters for the crim­i­nal courts and the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Rules, which gave at­tor­neys and judges di­rec­tion on case man­age­ment and pro­ce­dure. "With­out the ap­point­ment of the mas­ters, the mat­ter can­not pro­ceed. That's the first thing. I haven't heard any­thing about mas­ters be­ing ap­point­ed...I don't know if there were ad­ver­tise­ments sent out, I don't know what the sit­u­a­tion is.

"The mas­ters play an in­te­gral role, in that in in­dictable of­fences they can is­sue war­rants to con­duct search­es and is­sue sum­mons­es for peo­ple to at­tend court, " See­ta­hal added. She said the mas­ters were al­so re­spon­si­ble for the sched­ul­ing or­der, which cov­ers whether the ac­cused re­quires Le­gal Aid rep­re­sen­ta­tion. "Apart from all of this," she added, "the pros­e­cu­tion is re­quired to file and serve wit­ness state­ments in less than three months."

Say­ing the DPP's of­fice plays a cru­cial role, See­ta­hal said state­ments would have to be vet­ted by pros­e­cu­tors so that the mat­ter could be moved from charge to tri­al. See­ta­hal, her­self a for­mer state pros­e­cu­tor and mag­is­trate, said, "The DPP's staff is skele­tal, and they have to op­er­ate all over the place. "The in­ten­tion of the act is to have mat­ters heard with­in months. But with­out the staff, can you rea­son­ably ex­pect this to be done?"

She added there was al­so a need for para­le­gal aides, more judges and mag­is­trates, and di­rect in­ter­ac­tion be­tween the DPP's of­fice and the po­lice. Pros­e­cu­tors, she added, would al­so have to de­cide what mat­ters could move for­ward when the new sys­tem comes in­to ef­fect next Jan­u­ary. Echo­ing See­ta­hal's sen­ti­ments was Se­nior Coun­sel Stan­ley Mar­cus, who al­so warned that if the DPP's of­fice is not al­so beefed up, that could cre­ate fresh prob­lems.