A decrease in budgetary allocation did not hamper significant developments in the Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago in the past year during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This according to Chief Justice Ivor Archie was speaking on Tuesday at the virtual opening of the 2021/2022 law term.
He said the Judiciary received $33 million last year compared to $45.5 million the previous year.
Archie said, “I believe the Judiciary has demonstrated its ability to manage public funds in a cost-effective, sufficient and accountable manner necessary transformation is hampered by the public sector’s hiring and financing arrangements that are notoriously slow and inefficient as, as I have observed previously, are in some cases incompatible with true judicial independence.”
He said the implementation of social distancing, health protocols, conducting jury trials posed a problem for the Judiciary but yet still, the Courts maintained an acceptable level of productivity.
Archie said, “This is not by any means to suggest that everything is perfect while we have been able to sustain an acceptable level of productivity, significant challenges remain such as the inability to conduct jury trials because of the severe logistical problems associated with social distancing and sanitisation.”
In the absence of a jury, 30 cases were dealt with including eight murder cases, he said.
Archie added, “The criminal division will be receiving focus attention this year as the logistics of providing large sanitised and socially distanced courtrooms for jury trials is likely to be a problem for some time.”
People, Plant and Process was the theme chosen for the virtually opening of the new law term.
Archie said the Judiciary intended to focus on transformation process reengineering, physical and digital infrastructure and technical and human resource realignment.
In dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic that is well into its second year, Archie said in order to maintain service delivery some changes were made and timelines advanced for the e-delivery of justice and the Judiciary call centre that offers live assistance and opportunities for problem-solving for whoever needs help navigating the systems.
He said in order to maintain and in some areas increase total depositions figures, it was a remarkable feat.
In the Civil High Court they were able to dispose of 3,025 while 74% of those matters were less than two-years-old.
In the Family District Court, there was an increase from 2,555 to 2688 matters disposed of those 72% less than one-year-old.
