EDITORIAL - Ignorance of law no excuse - especially for judges

Mark Golding, the justice minister, hasn't said much on the matter, at least in public, in the four months since he outlined in the Senate the administration's plan for the reform of the Court Management Services, the body that was launched four years ago to provide administrative/management support to Jamaica's judiciary.

We look forward to the minister's update, hoping that the reforms, which were to be stretched over two years, starting in the current fiscal year, are under way. For it's no secret that the barnacled administration of the courts is in need of an overhaul - and, some might claim, the judges a good kick up the pants to help with their efficiency.

Indeed, we all know the statistics to which the inefficiency in our courts translate: a backlog of more than 400,000 cases, or, if we accede to the more conservative arithmetic of those in the system, a quarter-million cases marking time in dusty and, perhaps, mouldy files.

High-profile example

But a recent high-profile matter that, for Jamaica, was Bolt-like in its swiftness through the court, highlighted the level of inattention - which we are advised is not uncommon among stakeholders in the system - that adds urgency to reforms of the kind contemplated by Mr Golding. We refer to the case in which Justice Bryan Sykes granted Viralee Latibeaudiere leave to apply for judicial review of the termination of her contract of commissioner of Tax Administration Jamaica, but was overruled by the Court of Appeal this month.

A stunning finding of the Court of Appeal, in a judgment written by Justice Dennis Morrison, is that a rule, the interpretation of which was critical to whether Mrs Latibeaudiere's application was within the allowable time - which Justice Sykes held it was - was amended two years earlier to have made it absolutely clear that it was not. Remarkably, while the amendment was published in the official Gazette, no one in the case seemed to be aware of the change - neither the judge nor counsel for the applicant or respondent. It was eventually raised by one of the lawyers for the Government during the appeal hearing.

Clock stops during leave

The issue turned essentially on how to count the 14 days the applicant has to file certain documents after the provisional leave is granted and the court goes on long leave. Justice Sykes' interpretation was that the clock stops running during that vacation.

While Justice Morrison disagreed with Justice Sykes' interpretation on what was before him, the appeal highlighted that even at that, as the government lawyer had pointed out, a 2011 amendment to the Civil Procedures Rules (CPR) had made it that a stopping of the clock could not apply to the documents claimed by Latibeaudiere's lawyers.

Justice Lawrence-Beswick, in an observation on everyone's ignorance of the rule change, noted that the point was "thoroughly and robustly argued before a senior judge by senior counsel presenting all parties ... (but) based on the unamended rules".

She added: "This, in my view, illustrates the need for the legislature to make provision for a more effective method of publicising the CPR."

So they should. And so, too, should Mr Golding accelerate his reforms. But judges and lawyers have a responsibility themselves to avoid ignorance. They might have saved a year, which could have been used in clearing some of the backlog.

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