The delays are costing us, say citizens
April 24, 2007
SOME LAWYERS are of the view that the Attorney-General should more often act his role as parens patrie (parent of his country) in making expeditious settlements in civil suits which citizens have brought against the State and in many of which it was obvious that agents of the State, particularly the police, had wronged citizens. Because of this lack of protection to citizens in need or who are under a legal disability, citizens sometimes have to wait for years to have such cases heard by the courts.
The lawyers said that even when lawyers from the Attorney-General's Department accepted liability, the meagre sums awarded as settlement were usually so outrageous that the citizens have to take the issue to the Supreme Court for assessment of damages.
They say the Civil Procedure Rules of 2002, which came into effect in January 2003, have contributed to some extent to the backlog of civil cases.
They explain that all cases which were filed in the Supreme Court before the new rules came into being have to go through all the stages just like the new cases. But some lawyers argue that the older cases, such as those from the 1990s, should be given early trial dates.
The new rules make provisions for all civil cases to go to case-management conference and then to pre-trial reviews which are presided over by judges.
Backlogs and delays go hand-in-hand and litigants in both the civil and criminal courts have complained about the long delays in having their cases heard.
It took Dalton Reynolds, a man convicted of murder, almost 10 years for his appeal to get to the Court of Appea he had filed it just two weeks after conviction. On January 27 this year, the Court of Appeal, in criticising the system of recording and storing records of trials at the Supreme Court, said: "The authorities must bear the blame for the delay and need to avoid any such aberration on its appellate procedural machinery in future. Supplementary systems of recording and storing records of trials are still required and ought to be implemented in order to avoid such delays."
Although Mr. Reynolds, a labourer of Donmair Close, Kingston 8, was not successful in gaining his freedom, the court ruled that by virtue of the long delay, his constitutional right under section 20(1) of the Constitution, to a fairhearing within a reasonable time, was breached. However, the court dismissed his appeal, stating that the case against him was strong. He was convicted in the Home Circuit Court on March 20, 1997 of the chopping murder of Carl Simpson, which occurred on February 14, 1993 at Blackwood Terrace, off Red Hills Road, St. Andrew. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to serve 18 years before being eligible for parole.
Last week, Mr. Reynolds wrote to The Gleaner querying what legal steps he could take to get redress from the Government in view of the Court of Appeal's findings that there was a "breach of my rights under the Constitution"....
Author: Gleaner Reporter
Source: Jamaica Gleaner
