The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

THE Court of Appeal is asking the government to provide it with improved facilities, including a larger courtroom.

The request came during a special ceremony hosted by the appellate court to report on its successes and challenges during the previous legal year.

Addressing members of the judiciary, attorneys, court officers and the press, Court of Appeal President Justice Anita Allen expressed gratitude to the government for its financial and material support over the last year.

"However," she said, "I urge the executive to provide us with additional space. We have long outgrown these premises and are in need of space for the expansion of the registry, the establishment of a proper library, the expansion of judges' chambers, the provision of a conference room for judges and indeed a larger court room for events such as this."

She explained that many of the facilities are just too small, which creates a knock-on effect that impacts other facilities.

"At present, because the library is so small, the majority of our books must be housed in judges' chambers which is most inconvenient.

"Further, the judges' chambers are so cramped that once the month's pending files are brought in, there is no space to hold chamber hearings.

"These must be held in the court room, limiting our ability to hold more than one single judge hearing at a time," she said.

Justice Allen explained that the court was offered space at the old Trinity Church for the registry's overflow but preferred not to have the registry housed in two separate buildings for obvious reasons.

"Last year, I was promised additional premises in this building for expansion. I fervently hope that will become a reality soon," she said.

In the meantime, the appellate court president said, the Claughton House court would have to make do with "an annex to the registry in Trinity and will be seeking the executive's support in providing the financial resources to do so."

Justice Allen said that despite these and other challenges, the court managed its case load efficiently and fairly, and effectively resolved the cases before it.

"Indeed we disposed of 148 matters, including final and interlocutory appeals. In the course of those dispositions, we dealt with a variety of very interesting legal issues, including some public law and constitutional matters of considerable interest to the public," she said.

She further noted that despite being "significantly impacted by the difficulty in retrieving transcripts," the court consistently ruled on cases within six months of their having been filed.

"I am also pleased to report that our average turn-around time for judgments was within three months of hearing. Nevertheless, we anticipate that our workload will continue to increase, as is evident from our statistics which show a 27 per cent increase in appeals filed last year over the year before," she said.

Justice Allen also highlighted the improvements to the Court of Appeal's website and said the court is hoping in the near future to test a pilot programme to allow for online filing.

"Once we have done so, counsel will be able to file some appeal documents online. We will be calling on counsel to help us with our testing," she said.