As a legally trained person with extensive experience working around the judiciary and the legal system, I often wonder just how litigants and accused persons, who are not represented by honest and competent counsel, fare with their various legal matters.
Successive administrations and their Attorneys-General have all, in my view, failed to conceptualize; develop and implement an efficient system for the administration and the delivery of ‘justice’. It all appears to be helter skelter and ad hoc .
Is this because the vast majority of our political leaders have been/are lawyers? Since the modernization of the judicial system under the futuristic leadership of the late great Sir Lynden O. Pindling, back during the 1980’s, little or nothing has really been done to take this vital sociological institution to the next level.
It is as if our various Attorneys-General did not have the vision or, more importantly, the concern to bring about amendments; improvements and reforms to the legal system. No bailiffs .
The legal system in The Bahamas is either constipated, with all due respect for those who are in charge of it, from the judges; magistrates; registrars and, of course, the Attorney-General of the day, Alfred M. Sears, may, themselves be in dire need of a large dose of an enema. We are, collectively, clogged up. In human beings, this can lead to death. Constipation in the legal system is causing serious concerns; delays and the adoption of vigilante justice. People are sick and tired of this shaving cream.
It takes forever to obtain a date for preliminary interlocutory matters before a Registrar of the Supreme Court.
It is next to impossible for trained lawyers to access such dates so you can imagine lay persons who may not be able to afford counsel.
Dates for Supreme Court civil cases take years, with no guarantees. Judges and magistrates, abruptly, and without explanations, often just don’t show up in court.
The Crown is routinely not prepared in serious criminal cases. Sometimes their lack of preparation is so glaring that a blind person would blush. Court staff act as if they are doing you a favour.
I have known Alfred Sears for a long, long time. In opposition, and while still a member of Bar Council, he was very vocal about the sorry state of the legal system. When the fancy struck him, as it often did, he had much to opine on. Now that he is head honcho at the AG’s office, what has happened in ten months ? Nothing, in my view.
The physical plants where ‘justice’ is dispensed are a disgrace and an indictment on Sears and the Chief Justice. The Prime Minister is a lawyer but, as he has little experience in the actual practice of the law, he may be excused for the sorry state of our legal system.
Maybe we need one of his committees or commissions to ‘study’ the terrible state of affairs in the system ?
Justice must be certain and it must be timely. It must also be dispensed with equity. A week or so ago, two accused were acquitted and discharged after ‘insufficient’ evidence was presented to a Magistrate’s Court. They had been charged, after an extensive police investigation, and a fiat from the AG’s office, with the murder of a son of the Hon. Leslie Miller.
The police, ordinarily, do not charge a person unless there is a prima facie case. Murder charges are not laid unless the Director of Crirninal Prosecutions is satisfied that the ‘evidence’ is there to secure a conviction, beyond reasonable doubt. So, how come at the preliminary stage can such a scenario occur? Complicity or constipation ?
Vigilante justice used to be practised in the wild west. Today, many communities in Central & South America often take matters into their own hands. Jails are stormed and suspected criminal perpetrators are dragged out into the streets; dosed with a flammable liquid and torched. Gruesome, yes, but an effective way to achieve zero tolerance to some crimes. Let this not become the norm in The Bahamas, even if we can’t take this ‘mess’ anymore.
Christie, Alfred Sears and the Chief Justice live, I suppose, in The Bahamas, so they must be aware of the deafening cries, tears and laments of Bahamians. Sears may well be in an ivory tower. Christie is where you put me . The CJ, a good, God- fearing man, means well, no doubt, but more needs to be done as opposed to the usual ‘pretty’ speeches and asides during legal openings.
To God then, that Great Law Giver, in all things, be the glory.
Yours, etc.
Ortland H. Bodie Jr.
Letter To The Editor, The Nassau Guardian
