Dear Editor,
I write to respond to a letter by Marcia Pitter-Brown titled 'Justice delayed is justice denied' published in your newspaper of January 18, 2013.
That letter dealt with a number of issues and I am in full agreement with the truth conveyed in the headline, but I feel obliged, as a matter of fairness and information, to refute her argument that because a number of cases of high visibility in Jamaica have been in the court system for an unreasonably long time, that is a good reason for not wanting Jamaica to join the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). If ever I saw an unjust swipe against an institution, that is it.
I write against the background of being a lawyer, Jamaican-born and bred, who has been practising in Barbados for many years and who has appeared before that court on two occasions.
Barbados is one of the countries that has the CCJ as its court of last resort and there is absolutely nothing in the history of how that court has dealt with matters on appeal that could possibly justify the smear in Ms Pitter-Brown's letter when, after alleging some unhappy facts relating to some NSWMA fraud case in Jamaica and asking where that case is heading, she leaps to asking, "Is this what we want to institutionalise with a CCJ?"
If Ms Pitter-Brown was to take a little time from watching CNN, Fox and MSNBC as she says she does daily, she may wish to go onto the website of the Caribbean Court of Justice and there read a number of cases in which the CCJ has been forthright and unrelenting in berating the courts of Barbados in respect of cases that have taken a long time to be heard and where, when cases have been heard, judgements have taken an unreasonably long time to be delivered.
I invite her and your other readers to access the case of Yolande Reid v Jerome Reid, the case of Ram Mirchandani and the case of Sea Haven Inc v Dyrud where, in that last case, the Court strongly criticised the fact that a case which commenced on June 6, 2002 was not heard until February 7, 2007.
It also criticised a period of four years and eight months taken in Sea Haven as being "a most unsatisfactory situation that needs to be remedied".
In Reid v Reid, a case in which I appeared, the CCJ in its judgement stated that the time taken to deliver judgement by the Court of Appeal was "an astonishing period of almost five years". The CCJ stated that such delays "deny parties the access to justice to which they are entitled and undermine public confidence in the administration of justice. The effectiveness of a judiciary is seriously compromised if it fails to monitor itself in respect of the time taken to deliver judgements and to arrest promptly any tendency to lapse in this aspect of its performance".
The CCJ has been on a mission to get the courts under its jurisdiction to deliver justice speedily, and apart from being unrelenting in its criticism of delay, it has actively taken steps to try to lift the standard of lawyering in the countries which have signed on to its appellate jurisdiction.
I can recall that Justice Adrian Saunders has conducted seminars on topics including one on costs to allow lawyers to familiarise themselves with necessary procedures.
I am truly concerned about the fact that my beloved Jamaica never seems to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. It is a fact that apart from criminal cases where the state pays for the approach to the Privy Council, most ordinary Jamaicans cannot dream of taking a civil case to the Privy Council, because of the sheer expense of it.
I can attest to the fact that persons in the states which have joined the CCJ have much greater access to that court as financially, such a case is much more within their financial capability.
It should also be of interest to my fellow Jamaicans that the CCJ has been reaching out to persons of limited means under a facility provided under Rule 10.6 of the Caribbean Court of Justice where impoverished parties may apply to the court for special leave to appeal as a poor person.
In a recent speech made to the Bar Association in Barbados, the president of the CCJ revealed that 25 such applications had been filed and so the civil litigants at the level of the CCJ have not been limited to corporate or wealthy persons.
The statistics show the difference in access to justice that has been the experience in Barbados. In the five years prior to Barbados abolishing appeals to the Privy Council, there were only eight appeals to that body. In the seven years since Barbados joined the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ, there have been 25 appeals to the CCJ from Barbados as at December 2012, showing a greater access to justice than previously obtained.
I am saddened that the deep-seated distrust of ourselves has resulted in false stories being bandied about the CCJ. Of what use is the present right of Jamaicans to take a civil appeal to the Privy Council if most Jamaicans could not possibly afford to go there? I am also at a loss to understand what it is that Jamaicans are afraid will happen to them by joining the CCJ's appeal jurisdiction.
The experience in Barbados has been that the CCJ has opened up the possibilities of access to justice for Barbadians and we have no reason to feel that we have been short-changed in any way. We have been able to stay in Barbados for many of the preliminary stages of the Appeal as the CCJ is not averse to using technology to avoid unnecessary airline trips to Trinidad.
We have all seen that court come to Barbados to sit in the Myrie case and it has made it known as a policy that it is amenable to visiting other jurisdictions if proper arrangements can be made.,
It is time we have respect for ourselves and realise that not because the judges are mainly Caribbean people, we should consider them to be sub-standard. Their stance against delay is well documented, and their strong, disapproving comments against fellow judges in the islands, when warranted, do not suggest that the Court operates on the good old boy principle.
I would implore Jamaicans not to be misled by persons who have no personal experience whatever of the CCJ, but who seem not to be able to withhold foisting their prejudices against that body on the general populace.
Beverley J Walrond, QC
bev.law@me.com
Unjust swipe against the CCJ
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I write to respond to a letter by Marcia Pitter-Brown titled 'Justice delayed is justice denied' published in your newspaper of January 18, 2013.
That letter dealt with a number of issues and I am in full agreement with the truth conveyed in the headline, but I feel obliged, as a matter of fairness and information, to refute her argument that because a number of cases of high visibility in Jamaica have been in the court system for an unreasonably long time, that is a good reason for not wanting Jamaica to join the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). If ever I saw an unjust swipe against an institution, that is it.
I write against the background of being a lawyer, Jamaican-born and bred, who has been practising in Barbados for many years and who has appeared before that court on two occasions.
Barbados is one of the countries that has the CCJ as its court of last resort and there is absolutely nothing in the history of how that court has dealt with matters on appeal that could possibly justify the smear in Ms Pitter-Brown's letter when, after alleging some unhappy facts relating to some NSWMA fraud case in Jamaica and asking where that case is heading, she leaps to asking, "Is this what we want to institutionalise with a CCJ?"
If Ms Pitter-Brown was to take a little time from watching CNN, Fox and MSNBC as she says she does daily, she may wish to go onto the website of the Caribbean Court of Justice and there read a number of cases in which the CCJ has been forthright and unrelenting in berating the courts of Barbados in respect of cases that have taken a long time to be heard and where, when cases have been heard, judgements have taken an unreasonably long time to be delivered.
I invite her and your other readers to access the case of Yolande Reid v Jerome Reid, the case of Ram Mirchandani and the case of Sea Haven Inc v Dyrud where, in that last case, the Court strongly criticised the fact that a case which commenced on June 6, 2002 was not heard until February 7, 2007.
It also criticised a period of four years and eight months taken in Sea Haven as being "a most unsatisfactory situation that needs to be remedied".
In Reid v Reid, a case in which I appeared, the CCJ in its judgement stated that the time taken to deliver judgement by the Court of Appeal was "an astonishing period of almost five years". The CCJ stated that such delays "deny parties the access to justice to which they are entitled and undermine public confidence in the administration of justice. The effectiveness of a judiciary is seriously compromised if it fails to monitor itself in respect of the time taken to deliver judgements and to arrest promptly any tendency to lapse in this aspect of its performance".
The CCJ has been on a mission to get the courts under its jurisdiction to deliver justice speedily, and apart from being unrelenting in its criticism of delay, it has actively taken steps to try to lift the standard of lawyering in the countries which have signed on to its appellate jurisdiction.
I can recall that Justice Adrian Saunders has conducted seminars on topics including one on costs to allow lawyers to familiarise themselves with necessary procedures.
I am truly concerned about the fact that my beloved Jamaica never seems to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. It is a fact that apart from criminal cases where the state pays for the approach to the Privy Council, most ordinary Jamaicans cannot dream of taking a civil case to the Privy Council, because of the sheer expense of it.
I can attest to the fact that persons in the states which have joined the CCJ have much greater access to that court as financially, such a case is much more within their financial capability.
It should also be of interest to my fellow Jamaicans that the CCJ has been reaching out to persons of limited means under a facility provided under Rule 10.6 of the Caribbean Court of Justice where impoverished parties may apply to the court for special leave to appeal as a poor person.
In a recent speech made to the Bar Association in Barbados, the president of the CCJ revealed that 25 such applications had been filed and so the civil litigants at the level of the CCJ have not been limited to corporate or wealthy persons.
The statistics show the difference in access to justice that has been the experience in Barbados. In the five years prior to Barbados abolishing appeals to the Privy Council, there were only eight appeals to that body. In the seven years since Barbados joined the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ, there have been 25 appeals to the CCJ from Barbados as at December 2012, showing a greater access to justice than previously obtained.
I am saddened that the deep-seated distrust of ourselves has resulted in false stories being bandied about the CCJ. Of what use is the present right of Jamaicans to take a civil appeal to the Privy Council if most Jamaicans could not possibly afford to go there? I am also at a loss to understand what it is that Jamaicans are afraid will happen to them by joining the CCJ's appeal jurisdiction.
The experience in Barbados has been that the CCJ has opened up the possibilities of access to justice for Barbadians and we have no reason to feel that we have been short-changed in any way. We have been able to stay in Barbados for many of the preliminary stages of the Appeal as the CCJ is not averse to using technology to avoid unnecessary airline trips to Trinidad.
We have all seen that court come to Barbados to sit in the Myrie case and it has made it known as a policy that it is amenable to visiting other jurisdictions if proper arrangements can be made.,
It is time we have respect for ourselves and realise that not because the judges are mainly Caribbean people, we should consider them to be sub-standard. Their stance against delay is well documented, and their strong, disapproving comments against fellow judges in the islands, when warranted, do not suggest that the Court operates on the good old boy principle.
I would implore Jamaicans not to be misled by persons who have no personal experience whatever of the CCJ, but who seem not to be able to withhold foisting their prejudices against that body on the general populace.
Beverley J Walrond, QC
bev.law@me.com
Unjust swipe against the CCJ
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