Barbados' Newest Justices Pledge to Address Court Backlog with Experience and Reforms

Barbados’ two newest justices have vowed to use their experience to help reduce the backlog plaguing the nation’s courts.

Victoria Charles-Clarke, newly appointed justice of appeal and Bryan Lawson Weekes, high court judge, were sworn in by acting President Jeffrey Gibson at State House on Tuesday.

“You find that because of the delays when victims have to give evidence over a long period of time, they lose interest and cases may not be able to go forward,” Justice Charles-Clarke said.

With over 30 years of experience as Registrar of the High Court, magistrate and Director of Public Prosecutions of St Lucia, she pointed out that in that jurisdiction, sufficiency hearings have been introduced as one of the measures to address the backlog.

“This is where the process of preliminary inquiries has been abolished and when persons are charged with an offence, it goes before a judge who conducts a sufficiency hearing. In some jurisdictions, it goes before a Master and the matter goes before a judge in a very short time,” she explained.

“The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court has also introduced criminal procedure rules which provide timelines by which cases can remain in the system and that has helped tremendously in that both the prosecution and defence have a time by which they have to file documents and be ready to present the case before the judge.”

She also made a plug for judge-alone trials and specialised courts to be implemented, and for the introduction of technology to help increase the speed at which cases are disposed of.

“With the right amount of resources and commitment, I think it can be achieved,” Justice Charles-Clarke asserted.

Honoured by the opportunity to serve in office, Justice Weekes, who has practised family, civil and commercial litigation in Barbados, declared his intention to help Chief Justice Leslie Haynes with the “significant backlog that exists now”.

“It is going to take a lot of work, long hours and a robust approach to civil litigation especially, which I intend to pursue,” he said. “Without working hard, we can’t achieve the goals which the Civil Procedure Rules which were brought in 2008/2009 intended. Judges under those rules have a duty to pursue the resolution of the dispute between the parties who have come to court. As a judge, I intend to pursue that goal, whether through ordering mediation which I would have jurisdiction to do or to take very robust case management approaches.”