CJ wants criminal cases dispensed in 2-3 years

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh has ex­pressed hope that crim­i­nal cas­es can even­tu­al­ly be de­ter­mined in un­der three years at some point dur­ing his tenure.

Boodoos­ingh re­vealed the am­bi­tious goal yes­ter­day, while be­ing in­ter­viewed by me­dia per­son­nel on the one- year an­niver­sary of his ap­point­ment.

Dur­ing the event at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain, Boodoos­ingh out­lined nu­mer­ous mea­sures that have been in­tro­duced over the past year to help re­duce in­ef­fi­cien­cy in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, in­clud­ing in the much-ma­ligned crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Boodoos­ingh said: “What I would like to see is short­er times for dis­po­si­tion of cas­es. Ide­al­ly, I would like to see crim­i­nal cas­es be­ing dealt with in one to three years. I mean if I could dream.”

He said cas­es in­volv­ing chil­dren and mi­nor traf­fic of­fences should be com­plet­ed in months, not years.

Boodoos­ingh stat­ed that the Ju­di­cia­ry is al­so work­ing on min­i­mal stan­dards for the dis­po­si­tion of cas­es and oth­er court process­es, which can be used to as­sess per­for­mance.

“We can’t im­prove our per­for­mance if we don’t have stan­dards,” he said.

Boodoos­ingh said train­ing is be­ing of­fered to less ex­pe­ri­enced ju­di­cial of­fi­cers, so they can be­come com­pe­tent in de­liv­er­ing oral judg­ments at the end of less com­plex tri­als, in­stead of tak­ing time to pre­pare writ­ten judg­ments.

He al­so re­vealed that he has been host­ing month­ly meet­ings with crim­i­nal jus­tice stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and mem­bers of the crim­i­nal bar, as their in­put is vi­tal to en­sur­ing ef­fi­cien­cy and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

“There are a num­ber of things that we have to work on at the same time,” Boodoos­ingh said.

Boodoos­ingh not­ed that there had been some al­most in­stant im­prove­ments based on the ini­tia­tives, but sug­gest­ed that con­sis­tent work is need­ed to en­sure progress is main­tained and built up­on.

“That doesn’t mean we can pat our­selves on the back and say, well, we are do­ing a re­al­ly good job. We have to keep look­ing at how we can im­prove our de­liv­ery of jus­tice,” he said.

“We are bet­ter off to­day than we were last year, De­cem­ber, in terms of judg­ments, but we’re not quite there yet,” he added.

Boodoos­ingh con­firmed that the Ju­di­cia­ry is work­ing on ren­o­vat­ing and im­prov­ing its cur­rent fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing in To­ba­go, but not­ed that fa­cil­i­ties would be pri­ori­tised based on the needs of the or­gan­i­sa­tion and its stake­hold­ers as well as bud­getary con­straints.

Asked about his tran­si­tion from be­ing an ap­pel­late judge to Chief Jus­tice, Boodoos­ingh said he has been able to cope with oner­ous ad­min­is­tra­tive re­quire­ments through plan­ning, or­gan­i­sa­tion and the as­sis­tance of a com­pe­tent team of sup­port staff.

“It has been a whirl­wind at times,” he said.

Boodoos­ingh not­ed that he still finds time to sit on ap­peal pan­els, in­clud­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing be­fore the event.

“The thing that I’ve been com­fort­able with for a long time has been the jus­tice part of this. I like be­ing in court,” Boodoos­ingh said.

Boodoos­ingh, how­ev­er, de­clined to re­veal his per­son­al stance over the pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­plac­ing the Unit­ed King­dom-based Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil (JCPC) with the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) as this coun­try’s high­est ap­pel­late court.

“I think it is best left to those who are part of the con­sti­tu­tion­al con­struct. My per­son­al view is ir­rel­e­vant to the dis­cus­sion,” Boodoos­ingh said.

How­ev­er, he re­vealed that he had dis­cus­sions with mem­bers of the UK Supreme Court, who al­so sit on the Privy Coun­cil, when he at­tend­ed the Open­ing of the Le­gal Year of Eng­land and Wales ear­li­er this month.

“They are hap­py to con­tin­ue deal­ing with our cas­es. They find our cas­es to be very in­ter­est­ing,” Boodoos­ingh said.

He not­ed they held dis­cus­sions over the in­creased use of vir­tu­al hear­ings to save costs on such ap­peals.

He al­so re­vealed that the Law Lords con­firmed that this coun­try is on­ly sec­ond to Eng­land in terms of the num­ber of ap­peals placed be­fore the court. He not­ed that T&T was ahead of Scot­land, Wales, North­ern Ire­land and oth­er Com­mon­wealth na­tions that still use the JCPC as their fi­nal ap­pel­late court.