Deputy di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) Michelle Solomon-Baksh says while the in­tro­duc­tion of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings Act (AJI­PA) has the po­ten­tial to im­prove the ef­fi­cien­cy of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, it must be sup­port­ed with up­grades in oth­er arms of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

The AJI­PA has abol­ished the need for pre­lim­i­nary en­quiries to be held trans­form­ing the process for in­dictable mat­ters, such as mur­der, kid­nap­ping, mon­ey laun­der­ing and some forms of sex­u­al abuse. The re­moval of pre­lim­i­nary en­quiries al­lows cas­es to go straight to the High Court.

Speak­ing via a video call at the Peo­ple’s Round­table civ­il so­ci­ety crime talks yes­ter­day, Solomon-Baksh said while the in­tro­duc­tion of AJI­PA is in­tend­ed to pro­vide a more stream­lined process in tack­ling se­ri­ous of­fences and re­duc­ing the back­log, it must be sup­port­ed with sim­i­lar up­grades in oth­er parts of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Of the ten sug­ges­tions she of­fered to im­prove over­all ef­fi­cien­cies and time­ly com­ple­tion of crim­i­nal mat­ters, Solomon-Baksh said the avail­abil­i­ty of enough com­pe­tent pro­fes­sion­als to as­sist in analysing ev­i­dence was need­ed.

“We need more pathol­o­gists. In­ter­na­tion­al­ly we are see­ing a de­cline in this area of ex­per­tise with­out the post-mortem and sci­en­tif­ic re­ports, there will be an in­evitable choke.

“The Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, Spe­cial Ev­i­dence Re­cov­ery Unit (SERU) and oth­er labs that may gen­er­ate cer­tifi­cates of analy­sis and doc­u­men­tary or sci­en­tif­ic re­ports must be ef­fi­cient.

“At least for the next ten years we ac­tu­al­ly need to flood these ser­vices with sev­er­al short-term con­tracts to ad­dress the back­log and then re­ly on a pool that is sus­tain­able. Op­er­a­tional­ly if we don’t take that first strike with what I de­scribed as a bat­tal­ion of ex­perts, we will choke the new sys­tem cre­at­ed for these new mas­ters and Judges,” she ex­plained.

Solomon-Baksh al­so sug­gest­ed that video ev­i­dence ob­tained from CCTV or body­cam footage should be in­clud­ed as it would ease re­liance on eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, out­lin­ing sev­er­al ben­e­fits.

“This will lend it­self to plea-bar­gain­ing, guilty pleas, for­mal ad­mis­sions, sav­ing ju­di­cial time, eco­nom­i­cal cross-ex­am­i­na­tion and safe­ty of wit­ness­es.”

She al­so rec­om­mend­ed ad­di­tion­al staffing of the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and a larg­er pool of crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­neys.

On the is­sue of gen­der-based vi­o­lence, Solomon-Baksh sug­gest­ed that such cas­es be in­ves­ti­gat­ed and pur­sued with the same tenac­i­ty as gang-re­lat­ed killings.

“There is a role for com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing with se­nior of­fi­cers who are spe­cial­ly trained in this field.

“The courts need the sup­port of the po­lice in serv­ing of­fi­cers and tak­ing the steps to in­ves­ti­gate and charge de­fen­dants who breach these or­ders.

“We need a larg­er net­work of lawyers ded­i­cat­ed to this prac­tice. Ide­al­ly every cham­ber, every law firm must have an in-house se­nior and ju­nior coun­sel ded­i­cat­ed to re­spond and serve in this field.”

Solomon-Baksh al­so im­plored at­ten­dees and fel­low speak­ers to do their part in lob­by­ing for these sug­ges­tions to strength­en ca­pac­i­ties at all sec­tions of the jus­tice sys­tem.