Junior lawyer in DPP’s Office on staff shortage

Hire more pros­e­cu­tors be­fore hir­ing more judges.

This was the sug­ges­tion of a ju­nior State coun­sel in re­sponse to re­ports that the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (ODPP) has been un­able to as­sign pros­e­cu­tors to four re­cent­ly ap­point­ed judges due to chron­ic and ever in­creas­ing staff short­ages.

Speak­ing un­der the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty fol­low­ing a re­port on cor­re­spon­dence sent re­cent­ly by DPP Roger Gas­pard to act­ing Supreme Court Reg­is­trar Kim­ber­ly Prescott, the pros­e­cu­tor con­firmed Gas­pard’s claims over the con­straints faced by his of­fice and staff.

“We can­not deal with four more courts. We are un­der in­tense pres­sure,” the pros­e­cu­tor said.

The pros­e­cu­tor claimed they and their col­leagues are re­quired to man­age over 100 com­plex cas­es de­spite re­ceiv­ing min­i­mal train­ing and hav­ing lit­tle ex­pe­ri­ence.

“It’s not hu­man­ly pos­si­ble,” the pros­e­cu­tor said.

The pros­e­cu­tor, who joined the ODPP short­ly af­ter be­ing called to the bar, not­ed that the ODPP was not an at­trac­tive prospect for many of their new­ly qual­i­fied lawyers.

Cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, a high turnover of ex­pe­ri­enced pros­e­cu­tors to learn from and in­her­ent dif­fi­cul­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with poor in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­duct­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers, the pros­e­cu­tor said: “No­body wants to be a pros­e­cu­tor in 2026. How many at­tor­neys are will­ing to risk their lives for the State?”

The pros­e­cu­tor claimed that hir­ing more in­ex­pe­ri­enced at­tor­neys like them would not have a ma­jor pos­i­tive im­pact im­me­di­ate­ly.

“Pros­e­cu­tion is re­al­ly a ca­reer,” the pros­e­cu­tor said, while lament­ing over the loss of high­ly re­spect­ed pros­e­cu­tors who left the ODPP af­ter serv­ing for years.

The pros­e­cu­tor al­so not­ed that while the pub­lic may be­lieve that State pros­e­cu­tors on­ly han­dle scores of mur­der cas­es that are ini­ti­at­ed an­nu­al­ly, they al­so have to con­tend with much less se­ri­ous crim­i­nal of­fences which re­quire sim­i­lar time and ef­fort to pros­e­cute.

“No­body hears about the non-cap­i­tal of­fences and those can be in the thou­sands,” the pros­e­cu­tor said.

In the cor­re­spon­dence to Prescott, Gas­pard claimed that his of­fice’s in­abil­i­ty to as­sign the pros­e­cu­tors was not based on un­will­ing­ness or re­cal­ci­trance but rather staff ca­pac­i­ty.

Stat­ing that his of­fice has been op­er­at­ing with acute pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al staff deficits for years, Gas­pard not­ed that over the past three years, three deputy DPPs and two as­sis­tant DPPs have been giv­en ju­di­cial ap­point­ments.

He not­ed that cur­rent­ly, the three deputy DPP po­si­tions are va­cant and there are on­ly three out of six as­sis­tant DPPs, with two be­ing re­cent­ly ap­point­ed by the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC).

Gas­pard said the few at­tor­neys cur­rent­ly as­signed to his of­fice are al­ready stretched to their lim­its, with each hav­ing to man­age over 70 mat­ters.

“To re­dis­trib­ute these se­vere­ly lim­it­ed hu­man re­sources among three or four ad­di­tion­al courts would, quite sim­ply, risk sys­temic diminu­tion in the qual­i­ty and time­li­ness of pros­e­cu­tions, there­by un­der­min­ing the very ob­jec­tive which the ex­pan­sion of the Bench seeks to achieve,” he said.

“Speak­ing can­did­ly, this is un­work­able,” he added.

Gas­pard sug­gest­ed there should be a di­rect cor­re­la­tion be­tween hir­ing new judges and pros­e­cu­tors.

He said even if the JLSC and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al were able to fill the long-stand­ing va­can­cies, it would take time for them to make a dis­cernible im­pact.

“Even up­on ap­point­ment, new­ly re­cruit­ed coun­sel must un­der­go a pe­ri­od of rig­or­ous train­ing and su­per­vised in­te­gra­tion be­fore they can be en­trust­ed with the con­duct of se­ri­ous crim­i­nal mat­ters,” Gas­pard said.

“To do oth­er­wise would be tan­ta­mount to an ab­di­ca­tion of my pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and a breach of pub­lic trust,” he added.

Gas­pard al­so took is­sue with new­ly ap­point­ed judges li­ais­ing di­rect­ly with his staff to ob­tain up­dates on mat­ters, as he sug­gest­ed such en­quiries should be done through a ded­i­cat­ed de­part­ment for in­dictable cas­es.

“While I ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the im­per­a­tive of ju­di­cial case man­age­ment, such com­mu­ni­ca­tions, if not prop­er­ly chan­nelled, risk cre­at­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive in­con­sis­ten­cy and, in some in­stances, un­in­tend­ed pres­sure up­on in­di­vid­ual coun­sel,” he said.

Re­spond­ing to the con­cerns in a news­pa­per re­port yes­ter­day, the Ju­di­cia­ry ac­knowl­edged Gas­pard’s con­cerns and as­sured him the staff short­ages were be­ing ad­dressed by the JLSC un­der Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh.

The Ju­di­cia­ry high­light­ed its ef­forts to im­prove the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem through case man­age­ment ini­tia­tives, ju­di­cial train­ing, stake­hold­er col­lab­o­ra­tion, and strate­gic ad­min­is­tra­tive re­forms.

In a re­sponse to the is­sue yes­ter­day, Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion (CBA) pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, sup­port­ed Gas­pard’s po­si­tion.

“Mak­ing the nec­es­sary ap­point­ments and adding sup­port staff to ex­pe­dite crim­i­nal mat­ters with­out tak­ing care of his de­part­ment means they are spin­ning top in mud,” Khan said.

“Not hav­ing a prop­er com­ple­ment of at­tor­neys will cause fur­ther de­lay. They need com­pe­tent at­tor­neys to pros­e­cute,” Khan added.