NASSAU, BAHAMAS — A shortage of staff, dispersed court buildings across the capital and the need for more effective legislation are some of the roadblocks and hurdles slowing down the court system, according to Chief Justice Ian Winder, who said that they are in need of more resources.
Winder told Eyewitness News that if he could wave a magic wand the first thing he’d want to establish is a centralized court building, for ease of access and efficiency.
“If you look around the place the courts are at least seven to eight places across New Providence which is totally inefficient and totally ineffective, the time has long since past for a new Supreme Court Complex,” he said.
The government has committed to addressing these issues, according to Winder, who said that another problem that they are currently in the process of fixing is the shortage of personnel so that cases can be dealt with in a more timely manner.
“We’re only one part of a system, the Director of Public Prosecutions office as I understand it has considerable staff shortages, which adds considerably to being able to process a lot of these cases through the system effectively.”
“[…] We are in the process of a recruitment drive to try and see at least four to five judges very early in the new year.”
In an interview with Eyewitness News, Director of Public Prosecutions Garvin Gaskins noted the importance of securing more plea agreements on the reduction of the court backlog.
Gaskins pointed to statistical analysis on prosecutions over the past five years as a testament to the “hardworking and sedulous team members at the ODPP”.
The enactment of a Court Services Bill is another anticipated item on the list of needs for the court, Winder said, along with several other pieces of legislation that could potentially lead to better management of the court system.
Noting the bill “died on the floor of the house, when the last government left office”, Winder said if restructured and brought back to the table, the legislation would afford the court their own annual budget.
“It actually calls for a kind of management change in that it will be a CEO who is appointed and a board that will govern the courts made up of, not only the Chief Justice, but the President of the Court of Appeal and some officers […] so it will give us a bit more oversight,” he said.
During the opening ceremony of the 2022 Legal year, the Attorney General said that the bill would be a priority for government.
Winder said he is optimistic about the prospect of the bill coming into effect, following discussions with both the Attorney General and the Prime Minister.
“It certainly would help the judiciary in managing its affairs and take away some of the timeframes what it takes to actually get things done,” he continued.
“So from that point of view certainly it will help, it will allow us to manage, hire employees, manage employees better than going through the usual, the challenging system that we currently exist with the public service; where we actually have to go through with the Attorney General’s office who goes through the Ministry of Public Service through the commission for us to get employees.”
Details from the court’s July 2016 to June 2019 audit are still being finalized, according to Winder.
He said the registrar and accounting persons are still working out the findings to resolve the issues that came out of previous reports that showed that thousands of dollars worth of payments had been altered or reduced.
“Persons in the accounting department are actually working overtime now to try and audit all of the records because the challenge is that when someone pays money in the court for child support, it doesn’t necessarily go to the consolidated fund,” Winder said.
“It’s not the government’s money, so it’s actually an imprest account that, where the money should come in and it should go out to whoever it’s supposed to go to.
“That account had apparently not been audited for quite some time and one of the complaints coming out of the audit was that it had to be properly reconciled and they’re actually in a process to properly reconcile.
“I expect that once they know exactly what’s in there and how its to be resolved then we can properly take steps to, from what I understand they’ve implemented some checks and balances to ensure that those are the key issues that they want to be done and no others show up.”
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