Fire up justice reform, Golding urges Holness
Published:Tuesday | December 8, 2020 | 12:14 AMRomario Scott/Gleaner Writer
Opposition Leader Mark Golding urged Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Monday to get cracking with outstanding justice reforms, including settling on the country’s final appellate court.
The leaders were speaking at the swearing-in ceremony for the newly appointed president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Patrick Brooks, at King’s House in St Andrew.
“There is, of course, some unfinished work to be done ... . There remains some constitutional reforms which we would like to see pushed,” Golding told Holness.
“We would like to like to work collaboratively with the prime minister to see if we could move the process forward both in terms of the arrangement for the final court and the overall arrangement for our head of State,” he continued, calling for a bipartisan approach.
Holness said that the strategic plan was to make the Jamaican justice system the best in the Caribbean in three years and among the best in the world in the next six years.
“Access to justice in a timely manner is fundamental for a well-functioning society,” Holness said. “A fair and efficient justice system is also a critical element of any country’s plan for the prosperity of its people.”
Chief Justice Bryan Sykes pointed out that adequate funding of the judicial system was critical to delivering justice.
He pointed out that successes were being realised as the Court of Appeal had exceeded its output of the entire 2019 in just seven months this year. He credited this to additional judges and some increased expenditure related to the court’s operations.
“The question of funding now is of great significance and so I think what we need now is a rethinking of how we fund the judiciary,” Sykes said.
Brooks, who vowed to continue the legacy of Justice Dennis Morrison, who he succeeds as president, supported Golding’s call, mentioning that Dr Lloyd Barnett had raised the issue on the weekend in The Sunday Gleaner.
Brooks said that the Court of Appeal has been hearing applications and cases by video link and telephones as it operates amid the pandemic.
“It has taken some getting used to and there are still some teething pains as we have technical glitches,” he said, adding that it was unlikely that the court would return fully to in-person hearings only.
“It will hopefully result in reduced cost to counsel and to the litigants. It will, however, require a greater outlay by the court in technical infrastructure and a demand for better telecommunication support,” he contended.
He suggested that the next natural step was to have the court fully digitised to facilitate attorneys filing documents in electronic format.