NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Prime Minister Philip Davis yesterday urged the courts to “pay more attention to persons who are [going to] be out on bail”, acknowledging the number of people killed this year who were out on bail or known to police.
The prime minister also expressed concern that the judicial system could be nearing collapse because of the backlog of cases.
I’m not one to take any glee in the fact that the person who may have been killed is known to the police or is on bail. All lives are important to me and it’s a multifaceted situation. The courts have to pay more attention to persons who are gonna be out on bail — PHILIP BRAVE DAVIS
He was speaking to reporters after returning from Rwanda where the latest Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting was hosted.
The murder rate is outpacing last year’s rate, with three people killed in just the last week.
National Security Minister Wayne Munroe told Eyewitness News recently that 30 of the 65 people killed up to the time of the interview were on bail for homicide.
Yesterday, Davis said: “I’m not one to take any glee in the fact that the person who may have been killed is known to the police or is on bail.
“All lives are important to me and it’s a multifaceted situation.
“The courts have to pay more attention to persons who are [going to] be out on bail.
“The courts have to take control of their trials so that people can have trials.
“I mean the backlog of cases is just astronomical and is almost nearing the [brink] of collapse in my view.
“And so, the courts have to step up and they need to hear these cases.
“The community, Bahamians have to appreciate as well that in the administration of justice they have a very critical role to play and that is when called upon to be jurors, they have to step up to be jurors and not be giving excuses because if you don’t have jurors to hear the cases the cases are not going to be tried.
“So, if you look at all of the ingredients to have what I call an effective administration of justice, it requires cooperation from all facets of society, from our communities where they have to want to be a part of ensuring that cases finish and finish quickly, by when they are called upon to provide jury duty that they do so without giving excuses; to our courts recognizing what’s happening in our community and taking charge of their courts.
Police have been challenged to curb the violence in the country, with Superintendent Audley Peters revealing last week that recent murders have not been taking place in hotspots.
Instead, he said people appear to be targeted wherever they are.
Davis also lamented the length of trials.
“What is astounding to me,” he said, “ [is] in my heyday of practicing law, I used to do murder cases three days.
“If a murder trial takes a week, that’s a long time.
“Trials for murders now taking months and two months.
“I still can’t understand why trials take so long.
“But that requires judges taking control of their court and controlling their court.
“At the end of the day we need to get the cases done, finished, and if anyone is aggrieved with any decisions, there is another level to go to and that other level is a bit more efficient than the lower level.
“It’s a very vexing issue. I know that tomorrow I’m going to Cabinet to raise an issue with respect to our national security vision and decide how we deal with this.
“When you deal with a person on bail, it means that he is accused of an offense, that means an offense would have been committed.
“We need to now pay more attention to prevention and so we’re hoping to put more resources in that aspect of the criminal justice system where we look to prevent events from happening and we want to put more resources in…rehabilitative measures where we could stop the recidivism; we try to redeem our men and women who are finding themselves on the other side of the law.”
