A group of attorneys claims there is a backlog of more than 200 cases at the Chaguanas Magistrate Court and the number will continue to increase as a result of a lack of human resources.
The situation is so dire, the attorneys said clients’ lives are now at risk as many of these legal matters are “sensitive”.
Attorney Richard Jaggessar told Guardian Media yesterday for more than a year, the three-system court, which deals with criminal, family and petty matters separately has not had its full complement of magistrates.
In many instances, he said clients are waiting for close to 6 hours, only to hear that their matter has been adjourned. The attorney indicated, “for the last two and a half years we have had two and a half magistrates because the third magistrate is part-time since they are back and forth from San Fernando and Port of Spain”.
He argued that the solutions being proffered by the Attorney General to implement registrars and masters are not enough.
In fact, he noted the solution is simply hiring more magistrates.
According to Jaggessar “there is an incident where someone has had 18 adjournments for a simple maintenance matter”. He added, “in these circumstances, we cannot start trials and that is one of the main reasons we have long remands.”
He deemed the delay in justice as a breach of citizens’ constitutional rights.
Attorney Shiva Boodoo, who has been practising at the Chaguanas Court for several years, lamented that the court is being treated as the “bastard child” of the Judiciary. In addition to the human resource constraints, he said there are several structural issues at the court. Despite being refurbished in 2016, he explained there have been incidents where people had to be conveyed to the health centre after standing for long hours in the “4-feet wide corridor” at the court due to a lack of proper ventilation.
Boodoo said attorneys felt compelled to highlight this issue because people are losing faith in the system.
He noted, “because there are so many adjournments people withdraw their cases and could possibly take matters into their own hands since the law is not assisting”.
A mother who is seeking full custody of her son told us her matter has been before the court since last year. She said she has had to sacrifice a lot of time away from her job and she is yet to receive a glimmer of hope.