‘Looming nightmare’

Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn is expressing fear that the acute shortage of court reporters to take verbatim notes and prepare transcripts of proceedings in the circuit courts is going to cause a negative and toxic effect on the administration of justice.

“This has the potential to prove to be an administrative nightmare for the prosecution and the police and will be totally inimical to the public interest. If it is that the courts cannot sit, then the judges will have nothing to try in the criminal division of the circuit courts,” Llewellyn said when asked about the potential for the shortage to impact the upcoming court session.

The Hilary session of the circuit courts opens today, but Llewellyn expressed concern yesterday that there would not be smooth sailing because of the shortage of court reporters as the courts cannot proceed without them.

The DPP described the situation as “a looming administrative nightmare”.

At the same time, attorney-at-law Leonard Green, who is president of the Advocates’ Association of Jamaica, referred to the shortage of court reporters as “a crisis”.

Green said there was talk of new technology to be implemented and that he was hoping it would be implemented soon to address the issue of the chronic backlog of transcripts for appeal cases, some of which are for years, thereby creating a clog in the system.

The Court of Appeal had to offer a public apology last month to a prisoner who had been waiting for 10 years to get the transcript of his sentencing hearing which was never received by the court.

Last November, Justice Leighton Pusey, in handing down judgment in a civil case after reserving judgment for eight years, blamed the delay on a pilot project for audio recordings which was to prevent the judges from taking notes.

He said “aspects of the project did not live up to expectation” and he attributed the inordinate delay to the failure of the project.

“Every effort must be made to re-engage court reporters who have left the system, two of whom I understand have left to become social workers because of much higher salary,” Llewellyn pleaded.

“I was shocked to discover that these highly technical, highly [skilled] professionals are paid in the secretarial range given the level of training, competence and accuracy they have to achieve.

“So, we also have the backlog in the Court of Appeal and we now are going to have a situation where the trials will not be able to take place in some courts and this is a looming administrative nightmare for the prosecution, the police and the defence counsel and the accused who are entitled to have cases tried within a reasonable time,” Llewellyn said.

She disclosed that those in the system have been hearing for quite sometime about the possibility of recordings being done in the criminal courts but stakeholders have not received any information of the how and the when this new system will be rolled out or whether there is any training of transcriptionists.

“It is not the judiciary, it is the prosecution and the police who will now have to double up and triple up to keep witnesses and victims and their relatives interested in trying their cases. We will have to explain to them why and the defence counsel have to explain to the accused persons who are in custody why their cases cannot be tried. This is an administrative nightmare which can achieve monumental proportions and have a very negative and toxic effect on the administration of justice. Complex cases are prosecuted by our office and it takes time and effort to prepare these cases.

“I am very, very concerned because we have been doing some good work in getting some of these complex cases off the court list in line with trial date certainty,” Llewellyn stressed.

She said two courts have already sat without any court reporters. They are the Gun Court mention court and the Plea and Case Management Conference mention court. So, if someone pleads guilty, the matter has to be sent to another court where there is a court reporter, Llewellyn said.

She was quick to point out that if the prosecution wanted to appeal the grant of bail, “we have to get an affidavit from either the prosecutor or the registrar in respect of what occured in court because there is no transcript.”

The chronic situation has resulted in Llewellyn having to prepare her office to pivot in respect of how they are going to communicate with the witnesses and the police in light of cases that were already set for trial for the remanet in the Circuit Courts in St James, Clarendon and St Catherine. The remanet is the last four weeks of the term. Llewellyn pointed out that this was the first time in her career as a prosecutor of over 30 years that the remanet will not take place.

“Even if it were decided that there should be a judge-alone trial, you cannot have a trial without the court reporters. If there are no court reporters, there can be no trial in the circuit courts because part of the constitutional process in terms of a right to fair hearing says that the transcript must be available in effect for the Court of Appeal to be able to review it whether the prosecution or the defence has appealed. So if there is no transcript there is no appeal, “ Llewellyn advised.

She referred to the case of Evon Jack in which the Court of Appeal in 2021 quashed his convictions because, after waiting in prison for eight years, the transcript of his trial was never produced.

Now, with the terrible backlog in terms of the transcriptions not being available, Llewellyn says it may possibly move the court to consider use of the nuclear option of quashing the convictions. Then if the convictions are going to be quashed what are the victims and witnesses going to say, Llewellyn queried.

The court reporters section falls under the Court Administration Division (CAD) headed by Chief Justice Bryan Sykes.

However, the court reporters are saying that despite pleas to the CAD and the Minister of Justice no one is listening to their cries for justice. The Civil Service Association, the union representing court reporters has made pleas on their behalf to the Ministry of Finance but nothing has been done to remove them from the secretarial post. Even executive secretaries are paid higher salaries than court reporters, one of them said yesterday.

“We have complained on numerous occasions that we are being under paid and overburdened with work and that is why we are leaving for greener pastures,” another of the court reporters told The Gleaner.

According to the court reporters, they have stopped complaining and are going to take action in 2024 because nothing is being done to replace those who have left.

The complement for the staff is 45 but that number has now dwindled to 22, a court reporter said.

editorial@gleanerjm.com