Dear Editor,

‘Tis the season once again for our justice system to be in the spotlight.

This has been fuelled by recent reports of accused people before the gun court being far less inclined to plead guilty under the new firearms legislation, with the resultant risk of there being an erosion of the gains made in the reduction of the backlog of cases in this court. This aside, the inordinate delay in obtaining DNA reports in criminal cases and the unwillingness of some members of our society to serve as jurors when called upon have also emerged as factors likely to impede any timely delivery of justice.

While some of these issues are by no means new, their significance has been magnified as result of a new atmosphere of intolerance within our courts to facilitate any delays in the trial process. In this regard, our judiciary, headed by Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, must take full credit. While one cannot ignore the Government’s contribution to improving some infrastructural frameworks within which justice is dispensed, by and large, our judiciary has had to “tun its hand and mek fashion” without sacrificing the quality of the delivery of justice given the paucity of resources that still exists in many areas. There still remains the need for more courtrooms, more judges, and a shift towards technology in treating with real-time recordings of proceedings within our courts.

Candidly, the issues that now plague our justice system are the result of our legislators refusing to heed the warnings of legal practitioners who foretold that the new firearms law would hardly see any accused charged under that law pleading guilty. This new law doesn’t provide any incentive in the way of a reduction in sentence for those wishing to plead guilty. Presently, whether one pleads guilty or not, an accused is assured of a minimum period of 15 years of imprisonment upon conviction for having a prohibited firearm. An accused would, therefore, sooner take his or her chances at a trial rather than offer up a plea of guilty.

It was naive of our legislators to think that the necessity to be remorseful and altruistic would be devoid of any consideration of a definite 15-year prison sentence when time came for any accused to contemplate pleading guilty. The result, therefore, is as it is now: the vast majority of cases are now moving towards trials. This is within the context of the reality that we simply do not have sufficient courtrooms, prosecutors, and judges to try all such cases within a reasonable time.

As it relates to the inordinate delays in obtaining DNA reports, surely it should have been recognised that DNA evidence would have become far more prominent in criminal cases given what are now common features in our legislation which deals with crimes such as murder, rape, and possession of a prohibited weapon. These common features are steeper mandatory periods of imprisonment. The stakes are, therefore, much higher. Consequently, proof in the way of guilt demands the exploration of independent scientific evidence other than the mere say-so of an accuser.

The reality is that the focus solely on laws dealing with the treatment of those accused of criminal offences is not an effective means to treat with the ills of the justice system. What is required is a recognition that the efficiency of our courts is not mutually exclusive to the proper operation of other State agencies, which, of necessity, interfaces with our courts.

In this regard, there needs to be urgent effort towards having our forensic laboratory properly staffed and well equipped to deal with the pace at which criminal cases are moving. Concomitant with this is the necessity for the public’s contribution to go beyond the often vile comments made on social media platforms when a judge’s ruling does not accord with their own alternative set of facts. Case in point, so long as it remains, it is shamefully preposterous that invariably only members of our working class seem interested to serve as jurors. To a large extent, those who can afford to and are members of our articulate minority find every excuse not to carry out this most important civic duty. They nevertheless have the most to say about our justice system.

Beyond seeking to increase the daily stipend that a juror gets for jury duty, the prosecutorial arms of the State need to bring to book the recalcitrant ones amongst us who fail to answer the call for jury duty. The penalties for failing to attend for jury duty should not be as minuscule as they are now. The penalties must have meaningful punitive effects on the pockets of such individuals who shirk their responsibilities.

Unless and until we abandon our emotional and knee-jerk reactions to treating with our crime problem we will continue to endanger the gains made within our justice system. Sustained gains will only be preserved when those of us unaffected have the same passion for justice as those who are directly impacted.

Peter Champagnie, KC

peter.champagnie@gmail.com