New strategies needed to revamp court system – CCJ President

– rges judiciary to adopt reforms in line with int’l best practices

Recommendations are being made for Guyana’s Judiciary to follow the lead of other jurisdictions, including the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) which has crafted new strategies in line with international best practice.
Making these recommendations was CCJ President Sir Dennis Byron, who was at the time addressing the Guyana Bar Association.
According to Byron, several complaints are usually levelled against the performances of judiciaries, the most common of which are the inordinate delays for trials to start, low performance and efficiency, high costs of court operations, and the public’s lack of confidence in the system.
“Discussions on judicial independence usually concentrate on the tensions between the executive and the judiciary; but let us recall the definition of judicial independence as the guarantor of the right of the citizen to a fair and timely trial,” he cautioned.
“If the trial process fails to provide this, should the judges and the legal profession look at their influence on judicial independence? I want to introduce some ideas that have influenced our operations at the CCJ,” Sir Byron continued.
He said that an efficient court system is a process of continuous improvement. The legal luminaire noted that the best courts are those that are continuously assessing where they are and developing plans to deal with systemic weaknesses. He noted that such courts also have to implement those plans, evaluate their effects, and then start over.
“In this regard, the International Framework for Court Excellence is a quality management system designed to help courts to improve their performance. The Framework is particularly useful to judicial policymakers and practitioners, and it prescribes a set of focused, clear and actionable core court performance measures,” Sir Byron explained.
“The Framework makes it clear that a court’s pathway to excellence will also be enhanced by open communication regarding its strategies, policies and procedures with court users and the public in general. (It) stresses the imperative for courts to be open and transparent about their performance, strategies, and processes, to ensure public respect and confidence in the judicial system and to publish details of what actions they are taking to address problems within the court system. This goes hand in hand with strategic planning,” he related.
He noted that one of the advantages of strategic planning is that important stakeholders, including the Bar, can use the opportunity to contribute to developing strategies which would guide judicial performance.
“At the CCJ, we also embraced this concept, and now we are at the end of the first plan, from 2012 to 2017,” Sir Byron revealed. “We are currently in the process of developing the new plan for 2018 – 2023. I recommend a similar process for the courts here.”
In Guyana, some have argued that there is a need for the judiciary to be more proactive in carrying out its duties. These calls have gained more urgency in the wake of a fire earlier this year that gutted most of the Camp Street prison. It was only last year that another fire had claimed the lives of 17 inmates.
According to the report of a Commission of Inquiry into the 2016 fire, the combination of being overcrowded, uncomfortable, and an unhygienic confinement creates ideal conditions for epidemics and for gangs to prosper and propagate discontent.
Moreover, the CoI found that reducing numbers in prison to manageable levels is the single most important priority for establishing safe, humane and purposeful prisons.
It was further noted that repeat offenders have increased by over 100 per cent, “indicating not only a waste of taxpayers’ dollars, but also the need for a more comprehensive and structured partnership within the wider justice system.”
But despite these recommendations, Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels, himself confirmed that at the time of the 2017 fire, over 1000 prisoners were being housed at the prison – a place of incarceration originally built to house half that number.
In addition, it was only after the 2017 fire that the judiciary took concerted steps to grant pre-trial liberty to remand inmates whose bail had previously been curtailed for various reasons.
From an infrastructure perspective, some steps have been taken to address some of the most prevalent complaints against the judiciary. Those include the construction of a night court and a court dealing specifically with sexual violence cases.