Editorial | Engage Justice Sykes

It is surprising that despite Chief Justice Bryan Sykes’ several public calls for overhauling how criminal cases are tried in Jamaica, there has been no response from the Government or robust engagement of his ideas by key stakeholders in the justice system.

The justice minister, Delroy Chuck, and the defence Bar have remained largely quiet, except for a handful of lawyers who are generally willing to engage in public debates and whose contrary views on the chief justice’s call for bench trials only are well known.

Justice Sykes last week re-engaged his crusade on that matter, but also expanded his campaign to abolish the Circuit Court, an issue that, on the face of it, is without the deep, philosophical fault lines and emotive tensions of his suggestion for doing away with juries. Maybe Mr Chuck can therefore start with a discussion around the circuit court proposal, which seems quite sensible to this newspaper.

Circuit courts are precisely what their name implies, itinerant courts in which judges move from place to place to hear and rule on major cases.

In Jamaica, the circuit court is essentially an arm of the Supreme Court, which normally sits in Kingston. But the circuit court travels the circuit, the island’s parishes, primarily to hear indictable matters. The chief justice assigns the judges and sets the times and places for the holding of these courts.

DONE ITS TIME

However, last week, Justice Sykes told The Gleaner that the system has done its time. It was now obsolete.

“The circuit court system, as it now exists in Jamaica, has outlived its usefulness,” he said, “The law governing the circuit courts was designed for a time when there were much fewer cases. That has changed, and there are a lot more cases to be tried.” Furthermore, cases have become far more complex, needing more time to be heard and resolved.

The minister responsible for justice has the authority to determine the number of circuits, including whether to “order that the whole island shall constitute one circuit”.

That seems to imply that should the minister take such a step, there would be no need to assign judges to matters in specific parishes at assizes, thus having the practical effect of bringing all cases directly under the umbrella of the Supreme Court.

Justice Sykes did not say what he would like to see replace the circuit court, or if it would mean judges of the Supreme Court being assigned full-time to parishes or regions to hear cases from a wider area – say, the island’s counties.

Such an arrangement would likely improve the focus of judges and efficiency of the court, thereby enhancing the timeliness of the delivery of justice. That would be good for citizens and raise confidence in the judicial system.

HAVE IMPLICATIONS

But it would probably also have implications for the number of the judges in the system, already too few, given the amount of work to be done, and for facilities to accommodate a full-time superior court. Indeed, Chief Justice Sykes must now flesh out his ideas.

And if the matter is not already on his agenda, Justice Minister Chuck should urgently begin to give it serious thought, as well as engage stakeholders on it. He must also address the question of jury trials, which, the chief justice argues, are time-consuming and inefficient.

Moreover, Jamaica has a big problem getting people to do jury duty. Few potential jurors bother to turn up to court when summoned.

While Justice Sykes makes the point that there is no inherent or constitutional right to jury trials, as well as insists that accused persons fare better before judges sitting alone than with juries, his opponents argue that the right to be judged by one’s peers is an important underpinning of the judicial process that gives meaning to democracy. Ordinary people get a say in dispensing justice.

We find it astonishing that Chief Justice Sykes’ position has not animated more, even intense, debate from stakeholders, including the Bar and the institutions of judicial learning and training, university law faculties and the island’s law school.

Indeed, this newspaper previously suggested that either the Norman Law School or the law faculties of The University of the West Indies, Mona or the one at the University of Technology should conduct an independent quantitative and qualitative analysis of outcomes of cases conducted with juries or judges sitting alone. We repeat that suggestion, and add a review of the merits of the chief justice’s declaration on the circuit court.