Steps being taken to increase courtroom space in Westmoreland

The Judiciary is working to increase trial capacity in Westmoreland, following significant damage to court infrastructure during the passage of Hurricane Melissa last October.

Chief Justice, Bryan Sykes, said that repairs are being done to the Family Court and steps are being taken to convert a building to house the Parish Court.

He said the move will ensure that “persons within Westmoreland can have access to justice in their parish and it will also reduce the additional burden and cost of travelling to Hanover for Circuit Court matters”.

The Chief Justice was addressing a recent forum dubbed ‘A Conversation with the Judiciary’ organised by the Court Administration Division (CAD) at the Summit hotel in St Andrew.

He highlighted the significant damage to the courts in western parishes caused by Hurricane Melissa.

In Westmoreland, the main courthouse in Savanna-la-Mar suffered significant damage and is currently unusable.

Parish court, family and civil matters are being held at the Whithorn outstation, while circuit court sittings have been relocated to Hanover.

Sykes noted that prior to the hurricane, Westmoreland had five operating courtrooms – three at the Parish Court and one each at the Family Court and the Whithorn facility.

After the passage of the hurricane the number of courtrooms was reduced to one, limiting the number of cases that can be tried.

Given the vulnerability of the island’s court facilities, with nine located within 50 to 100 feet of the sea, he charged the CAD to “put itself in a position to ensure that a critical arm of government can function even after a category-five hurricane”.

“We now know what we are dealing with, so we have to put ourselves in a position where, if the courts are affected in the way that they were by the hurricane, persons can still have access to timely justice.

“So, we know that within the building industry, there are containers and buildings of all sorts that are mobile; the technology has been developed,” he pointed out.

The forum was a strategic engagement with the leadership of the Judiciary outlining key milestones in court modernisation, case backlog reduction, digital transformation, and strengthening of service delivery.

It also provided an opportunity for informed dialogue on the progress being made and the future direction of the Judiciary.

Established in 2009, the CAD serves as a means of improving the justice system through the restructuring of the administrative framework and the strengthening of judicial independence.

It is designed to enable the judiciary and the courts to have greater input in budgetary decisions and execution of activities surrounding the operations of the courts.

- JIS News

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