Smack in the heart of the city of San Fer­nan­do is the di­lap­i­dat­ed and mos­qui­to-in­fest­ed old mag­is­trates' court that once stood as a pil­lar of jus­tice. Con­struct­ed in 1931, the his­toric build­ing which is cov­ered by a yel­low tar­pau­lin is now con­sid­ered an eye­sore. The build­ing has been ear­marked for de­mo­li­tion by the Min­istry of Works, while a new court is ex­pect­ed to be con­struct­ed on the site where the old Wa­ter and Sewage Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) build­ing once stood at the cor­ner of Sut­ton Street and Irv­ing Park, San Fer­nan­do.

No of­fi­cial time­line has been giv­en for these two projects.

Mean­while, the mag­is­trates' court has been re­lo­cat­ed to the Supreme Court and has been op­er­at­ing on a shift sys­tem for the last two years. There has been a pletho­ra of com­plaints from users, in­clud­ing at­tor­neys and mem­bers of the pub­lic.

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, at­tor­ney Sub­has Pan­day who has been prac­tis­ing in the San Fer­nan­do courts does not agree with the de­ci­sion to de­mol­ish the court. Pan­day said it would cost a lot more mon­ey to con­struct a new court and take sev­er­al years be­fore it is func­tion­al. "It is prop­er­ly en­gi­neered and struc­tural­ly sound, it is an ide­al build­ing for a court. The cells (cell­block) are un­der the cour­t­house and there is an al­ley lead­ing to the First and Sec­ond Mag­is­trates' Court. The bet­ter thing is to re­fur­bish the build­ing. It does not make sense to go all the way to Sut­ton Street."

Past pres­i­dent of the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers Ramesh Deena said while the coun­try cel­e­brat­ed its 57th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence re­cent­ly, "the le­gal prac­ti­tion­ers and mem­bers of so­ci­ety who ac­cess the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates' Court and the As­sizes have lit­tle to find any joy or so­lace in a sys­tem that seems to be al­ways on the back-burn­er of those in au­thor­i­ties." He lament­ed that the Sec­ond, Fourth and Fifth Mag­is­trates' Courts con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in ab­bre­vi­at­ed ses­sions. "The sit­ting mag­is­trates try their best, but it’s a bro­ken sys­tem that thus far, time does not seem to cure. At­ten­dances are to most­ly se­cure an ad­journed date as there is lim­it­ed time to con­duct full tri­als. It has be­come not on­ly frus­trat­ing but an­noy­ing."

De­spite talks, he said, to date not a stone has been turned to in­di­cate any se­ri­ous move to have a prop­er func­tion­ing mag­is­trates' court.