CCJ President lauds Guyana’s Judiciary’s “comprehensive, excellent” Strategic Plan

The Guyana Judiciary has identified a number of tactics, through its recently unveiled seven-year Strategic Plan, that would allow it to maintain its position as a leader in the administration of impartial and fair justice.
Further, in regard to the current leadership of the Judiciary, Justice Adrian Saunders, President of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Guyana’s highest court, has voiced “every confidence” that the Strategic Plan would serve as a crucial manual for action.

“Moreover, I have looked at the document, and I have seen the care and thoroughness that have gone into its preparation. It is a comprehensive assessment of where the Judiciary is at this time, and where it wants to be in seven years, and the steps it will take to arrive at that destination,” Justice Saunders remarked as he spoke at the launch of the document.
As a result, he praised Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards, Chancellor of the Judiciary, and everyone else who contributed to the creation of the “excellent” Strategic Plan.
Justice Saunders asserted that the most important metric any Judiciary should be concerned about is the degree to which the public reposes trust and confidence in it. “But how do we measure public trust and confidence? What tools and methods do we use to do so? Assuming we have the right tools and the right methodology, how do we go about raising public trust and confidence?” the regional jurist queried.
He continued, “Without a proper Strategic Plan, these questions cannot be answered in a systematic way; and our approach to answering them would be no different from that of a ship with no compass and rudder set in sail for a particular destination. That is fundamentally the difference a Strategic Plan makes.”
Justice Saunders therefore urged Judicial officers and court staff to ensure they embrace the Strategic Plan as their daily guide to action.
He told them they should each keep a copy of the document on their desk, and continually consult it to evaluate if any action they take aligns with the principles the plan promotes, or deviates from it, and how each job they undertake advances a specific issue or objective outlined in the plan.
At the same time, he said court leadership has the responsibility to adopt approach performance measures, standards, and monitoring mechanisms to assist Judicial officers and staff in meeting and carrying forward the goals of the Strategic Plan.
He declared himself heartened to see the copious references made in the Strategic Plan to the International Framework for Court Excellence, and
explained, “This Framework features universal core values, and seven areas of court excellence align with those values as well as concepts and tools by which courts worldwide can voluntarily assess and improve the quality of justice and court administration.”
He advised the Judiciary to adopt this uniform quality management system rather than having to “reinvent the wheel”, and added, “Let the framework assist you in realising your strategic goals.”
Pursuing Service Excellence through Investments in Human Resources, Management Systems, and Technology is the theme of the 2024–2031 Strategic Plan. (G1)