RMs bail out of courts

Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

Proceedings in the Resident Magistrate's (RM) courts islandwide were disrupted yesterday as the resident magistrates staged a sick-out because of the Goverment's tardiness in responding to their concerns.

The Gleaner was told that Prime Minister Bruce Golding has called a meeting today with members of the executive of the Resident Magistrates' Association to discuss the issues.

It is expected that the resident magistrates will return to work today because of the prime minister's intervention. The RMs say the burning issues are the Government's failure to provide adequate security for them and to remove them from the post of civil servants and have them classified as members of the judiciary. The RMs have for more than a decade been making demands to have their posts changed so they can have security of tenure like Supreme Court judges.

Problems outlined

They said they had sent a letter by hand three weeks ago to the Ministry of Justice outlining their problems but up to yesterday, they had received no response.

"If the minister or the permanent secretary had responded and said let us set a date for a meeting, then things would have been different," one of the resident magistrates said.

Yesterday, the clerks of courts had to put off the cases which were set for trials or mention to other dates.

The Gleaner's Western Bureau contributed to this story.