Ambitious case-management plans for justice ministry
Published:Friday | July 15, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Erica Virtue, Senior Gleaner Writer
The Ministry of Justice has set its sights on attaining the international standard of a one-year average for the disposal of cases in the court system by 2014, reducing the current three-year average to two years in a move to clear the massive backlog of 400,000.
Ministry officials, who appeared before the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) of Parliament on Wednesday, gave the assurance that despite significant setbacks from reduced funding, attempts are being made to clear the backlog.
Permanent Secretary Roderick Rainford said the ministry has received funds and a commitment for the Government to roll out a programme for criminal case-load management, which it is hoped will put a dent in the backlog.
"We have also implemented a parish criminal board, where all the players, the custos, the police, the clerk of court, the Ministry of Health, and all of the players who impact on the justice system will meet on a monthly basis. We have also established a national parish board, where matters of adjournment and delays will be brought on a national basis … . The target is that we want to reduce it by 40 per cent in this financial year," the permanent secretary said.
PAAC chairman Dr Wykeham McNeill asked Rainford to say what are the international norms, and how Jamaica's plans coincided with those.
"The target we are working with, is for cases to stay two years in the system," Rainford said.
case disposal rate
He said case disposal was currently running at a three-year average, in response to McNeill's suggestions that the two-year target was too high.
"Internationally, it's a one-year average and eventually we would want to reach there," the permanent secretary said.
"Based on where we are, Chairman, in terms of the programmes that we want to put in place, we are rolling out most of these programmes in 2011-2012. Our expectation is that come 2012-2013, we could move the programmes down to a two-year, but by 2014 we want to get to one year," Rainford said.
McNeill asked whether the ministry received funds needed to implement the programme and the permanent secretary said the $30 million requested for the criminal-case management was received.
However, Rainford said the ministry was behind in its computerisation attempts, as it did not receive any of the $178 million it requested.
"We got nothing," he said.
He said attempts were being made to secure funding through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), but in the meantime, the ministry has been trying to move funds around to assist itself.
Rainford said the main project being undertaken by the ministry was the construction at Justice Square downtown Kingston. He said the cost was $760 million and would include a total overhaul of the areas in the square.
'We are expected to have six new courtrooms over there, additional judges' chambers so that we can recruit more judges, we are going to expand the registry of the Supreme Court so that we do not have the problems we have now with files piled up on top of each other, and there is going to be a bridge linking the Supreme Court to the new building," Rainford told the meeting.
The programme, which began in April this year, is expected to be completed next year.