President Dr Irfaan Ali will today swear in five of the seven new Appeal Court judges to improve the efficiency of the court system.
Justice of Appeal Rafiq Khan, Justice-Damone-Younge, Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry, Justice Navindra Singh, Justice Nareshwar Harnanan, Justice Kim Kyte-Thomas, Judge Justice Joanne Barlow
This was announced by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) on Tuesday.
Those persons are Justice Jo-Ann Barlow, Justice Navindra Singh, Justice Nareshwar Harnanan, Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry, Mrs. Joycelin Kyte-Thomas, Justice Damone Younge and Rafiq Khan, SC.
According to the JSC, “due to the exigencies of office and the need to address outstanding matters, two of those persons will be taking the oath of office at a later date.” They are Justice Younge and Khan.
These appointments follow recent updates to the Court of Appeal Act to increase the complement of judges sitting in that court from nine to eleven.
Three judges preside over a case at the Appeal Court at any given time. Therefore, the complement of eleven, allows for two extra Judges to be available when one Judge is out of the jurisdiction or unavailable for some reason.
The Court of Appeal also recently benefitted from an extension to its current building at Kingston, Georgetown to prepare for these appointments.
During his weekly programme “Issues in the News” on Tuesday evening, Attorney General Anil Nandlall said that while the backlog of court cases was addressed in the High Court, “the backlog seemed to have now moved to the Court of Appeal because we had very few judges to begin with in that court, and then there were vacancies.”
Nandlall explained that “you can have different sittings of the court at the same time because we now have an extended building. The building previously can only accommodate one sitting at a time.”
He expressed hope that these appointments can clear the backlog in the system.
He noted that while the backlog of court cases was addressed in the High Court, “the backlog seemed to have now moved to the Court of Appeal because we had very few judges to begin with in that court.”
