The Tribune

For the majority of citizens whose lives rarely if ever touch the court system, the subject of how many judges are sitting on the Supreme Court seems distant and irrelevant. A shortage of judges is not likely to be a hot topic around the Keurig cup coffeemaker on a Monday morning and unless lawyers are gathered, there is little chance the subject will arise at all.

Yet a hidden danger of a shortage of judges is having a serious dual impact that does touch all of us. It leaves lives of those with cases pending in limbo and it erodes confidence in the belief of an impartial and effective judicial system. When trust in the system begins to falter, those who would have relied on it search for other means by which to solve problems. They look outside traditional routes for resolution and as that happens, the system breaks down even more.

How bad is the civil matter judiciary position in The Bahamas today? From the information we have been able to gather, there are approximately 1,500 new civil cases filed every year. With civil court judges diverted to criminal matters, there are only two Supreme Court judges assigned to civil cases, Justice Indira Charles and Justice Gregory Hilton. Two judges for thousands of cases is untenable and unsustainable. It is a national embarrassment that threatens to make a mockery of the judicial system.

The number of judges is down by nearly 75 percent from only five years ago as a result of attrition and re-assignment to criminal courts. Getting a court date is the first challenge and unless there is cause for urgency, whether it is health-related or the defendant is a likely candidate to disappear prior to hearings or trial, the initial hearing date could be one to three years hence.

Hearings, motions and trial are just the beginning. Once the trial has concluded, a judge must issue his or her ruling, a process that can take up to six weeks just to prepare and as long as three years following the trial given the backlog of cases to be heard and rulings to be written. A ruling issued in six months is considered timely.

For those who believe that justice delayed is justice denied, justice is being denied too often to too many, citizens who believe that the legal system works for those who turn to it when injustice has hit them or they have been victim or prey to a scheme, scam or other affront that has caused them harm but falls short of criminal activity.

Civil cases range from matters involving divorce, family and children to issues involving real estate, unsecured obligations, housing matters including eviction, foreclosure and substandard living conditions. They include cases of misfeasance or malfeasance involving abuses of public office or position that may or may not also qualify for criminal charges. Human rights cases, environmental matters go before a civil court judge. Civil courts are overwhelmed with lawsuits stemming from accidents in which the plaintiff is charging that the injury, whether vehicular, a fall from scaffolding or other, was caused by negligence. There is no shortage of roster material, but there is a serious shortage of judges that in addition to leaving the individuals seeking justice out in the cold, places an undue burden on those two judges. One attorney who has been waiting for over a year for a ruling is both anxious and sympathetic.

In The Bahamas, the title Supreme Court is either a misnomer or simply misleading. It is actually the entry point for any case involving a claim exceeding $10,000. Claims below that amount are filed in Small Claims Court. Labour matters are handled by an Industrial Tribunal and a new Environmental Court is to be re-introduced to take some of the load off the Supreme Court and the Magistrate’s Court.

Because cases can go from Supreme Court to Court of Appeal, judges take extraordinary care in preparing their rulings, wanting to cover every aspect so as not to be overturned by the higher court. Given that once the Supreme Court justice has issued his or her ruling, the plaintiff or defendant can file an appeal with the Court of Appeal and, in rare cases, dissatisfaction with a decision from that court can land the case in the Judicial Review Committee of the Privy Council, the process can drag out for years. Those years take a toll on a citizen who was injured physically, financially or emotionally and seeks redress.

In addition to the very practical need to appoint a Chief Justice so applicants feel secure their case will be handled with knowledge and consistency, more judges must be appointed to the Supreme Court, If the quality of justice required is not attracted from within the law firms of The Bahamas, we must continue to search regionally. Those who have come from abroad have served admirably and because they come from states or island nations where the legal profession may not be so lucrative as it is in The Bahamas, they are willing to dedicate themselves to what has been deemed even by local lawyers as an “obscene trial caseload”.

The situation of two Supreme Court justices with a backlog and 1,500 new cases filed a year must be addressed. The judicial system is one part of a tripartite form of governance, with the legislative and executive constituting the other two. When one leg of a three-legged platform fails, risk of collapse of the other two becomes too great.