Acting Chancellor urges lawyers to practise compassionate justice

…says Restorative Justice Centre will enhance criminal justice system

Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards has called on members of the Guyana Bar Association (GBA) to practice with empathy and compassion, highlighting that these characteristics are essential to achieving justice, while also reminding them of their obligation to serve the public.
While addressing a large gathering, which included judicial officers, diplomats, Government officials, attorneys-at-law, and law students at GBA’s Law Week Symposium last Friday, the Chancellor encouraged the GBA to give back to the community in the form of community engagements and outreaches.
She said attorneys-at-law must ensure that their legal and social obligations to the Bench, the Bar, and fellow citizens are carried out.
“I know in the legal profession, you operate as a fee-for-service occupation or pay as you seek my services, pay as I appear in court to represent you. But I want to challenge you to embrace a new way of looking at justice. Looking at the civic component, in terms of maintaining social order, promoting rights and values and stability,” Justice Cummings-Edwards said.
Law Week featured several activities, including pro-bono work and outreaches to secondary schools.
Compassionate lawyering or advocacy, the Justice of Appeal explained, calls for a paradigm shift from the adversarial system to the integration of compassion to treating the particular issue at its core and finding a solution.
The acting Chancellor added, “We are talking not about sympathy or a court of sympathy but one where access to justice, delivery of services, administration of justice as a whole, and the physical space and the environment are infused with compassion and empathy.”
In making her point, she noted that Guyana’s apex court, the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has embraced compassionate justice, especially in criminal matters.
“Because we have seen over the past few years, drastic reduction in the sentences from those imposed by our trial Judges when they take into account those social determinants together with a very, very low starting point for the offence. Adding to that, the necessary aggravating and mitigating factors and the necessary upward or downward adjustments.”
Speaking specifically on the symposium’s theme, “New Frontiers in Law, Preparing for the Future”, the Judiciary’s head said that new frontiers should not only be in the area of technology or legislation or online courts, but it should also embrace social justice, community justice, therapeutic justice, and compassionate justice. Alluding to the recent symposium at which Caricom Heads of Government declared the Region’s crime and violence situation a public health issue, the Chancellor emphasised that the three arms of Government and the public must work together to keep society safe.

“Compassionate jurisprudence which treats the core of the issues of the problem facing society, to my mind, will help especially in the criminal justice system. Rather than place the burden on the courts alone, or imply that the courts may have a part to play by the granting of bail, all hands being on board to address the issue, and the implementation of mediation, [Alternative Dispute Resolution] and a raft of similar measures will to my mind assist with the existential threat posed by crime and violence in society.”

Restorative justice
Justice Cummings-Edwards lauded the recent passage of the Restorative Justice Act of 2022, which she said, will bring together community residents, victims, offenders, and their personal representatives, in a safe and carefully managed environment to effect repairs in communities that have been damaged by criminal acts.
To this end, she said that the recently launched Restorative Justice Centre will enhance the criminal justice system because it will provide huge benefits for the criminal justice system.
With restorative justice, the Chancellor added that there will be no compromise on fairness or equality or access to justice but socially disadvantaged groups and social justice and criminal justice will be brought together to repair, rehabilitate and restore.
In closing, she stated, “I would like to see the Bar Association of Guyana encouraging fellow practitioners to engage in the practice of law in that new frontier of restorative justice, mediation…We need to support therapeutic jurisprudence. The realities of life are such that compassion must find its way into the justice system if we are to treat the core issues involved in the dispute before the court or if the offending behaviour can be addressed.”
The Restorative Justice Act, inter alia, is aimed at strengthening the justice system and reducing the prison population through alternative sentencing. (Feona Morrison)