The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

WHILE admitting that an issue facing criminal court cases is generally the preparedness of the prosecution to proceed, National Security Minister Wayne Munroe said a lot of rules have now been put in place to make trials more efficient.

His comments came after Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis’ on Monday asserted that courts have to “step up” in regards to hearing murder cases. Mr Davis also called on Bahamians to be ready when called upon to be jurors.

Mr Davis, a QC, stated the backlog of cases was “astronomical”, adding in his view the system was almost nearing collapse.

Before the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday, Mr Munroe, also a QC, said judges have an obligation through their sworn oath.

He said: “Judges have an obligation to do what they swore an oath to do. An example of how the judiciary works is there was recently reported that a gentleman was remanded for his own protection. Having read the story not knowing the facts but getting them directly from the story and the judgement that as an example if you prove to the court a fact the court will act on it.

“The courts currently are recovering from the shutdown of everything. I acted as a judge... in the criminal division for three months. Jurors generally aren’t the issue. The issue generally is the preparedness of the prosecution to proceed, sometimes overindulgence of the defence counsel, which I didn’t do when I was on the bench and just marshalling things so they go along. We have a lot of rules that have been put in place that could make trials more efficient.

“When I was in practice, a case that took four months to try, I tried as a defence counsel in seven days and so if you permit people to waste time a case that could be disposed of in five to seven days will take three to four months and so there are a lot dynamics in it. Judges sometimes say they don’t want to stop a defence counsel because everyone is going to say my lawyer didn’t get to present my case. But at some point, we have to be more proactive.”

Mr Munroe recalled that sometime before 2000 a report was produced with recommendations on how to address case backlogs.

“I was on the Chief Justice's delay reduction task force, it was before 2000, I believe that produced the report. I’ve asked them to look for it because a lot of the recommendations there can go quite a ways to addressing the backlogs.

“So, for instance, there was a suggestion judges get five weeks vacation. If there’s 10 judges in the criminal division, that’s 50 weeks of vacation for the judges in a year. That’s a year of trial time, right. Well, when they are out of the chambers on vacation nobody sits in their court.

“So, you lose about one year trial time to vacation where as you can seek to do what they do in England and have these people who want to be Queen Counsel sit and show that they are leaders of the bar by acting in criminal matters for the time that the judges are on vacation and you would immediately get 50 weeks of trial time. And so I’m seeking to get that report so that we can have a look at it to see what is still relevant and to see what we can look at executing.”

Mr Munroe previously stated there is always concern when people on bail are victims of murder.

Yesterday, he said the victims' lifestyles may place them in danger, adding that up to the shooting death of a Royal Bahamas Defence marine last week, there had been about 30 people murdered who were on bail.

“The fact that you know where someone is 24 hours a day doesn’t stop someone from murdering them unless you have a standing guard on them 24 hours a day. That feature maybe an indication of retaliation as well as it maybe an indication that the person is involved in a lifestyle that puts them into conflict. So, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but if I’m a gangbanger and I get charged with murder and I get bail and I come out and continue that behaviour. My murder maybe related something I’ve done since I’ve come out,” he said.

“The police do a very good job at investigating these things and getting intelligence at trying to show what is retaliation because that may then set up the fact that you’re gonna have a domino effect of murders in short period of time and so that’s a job they do very well and that’s what they always look at when they find a murder. But yes 30 out of 65 persons who were murdered, well that was up to the point of the defence force marine’s murder was the 65….so we’ve added three since then. But the 30 of that number were persons on bail.”

The murder count this year is 69 so far.

Mr Munroe also said: “I have been in practice when the crown objects to you getting bail because your life will be in danger. Every applicant says that should be my problem I could look after my own safety and I don’t accept that and so they (are) then release on bail unless the crown can show as they were able to do in the recent case that there really is a theft to this person being killed.

“Because what they will say is we have about maybe 300 people on bail for murder. Thirty have been murdered, that’s 10 percent. That’s not a high enough percentage to indicate that I will be murdered. Persons for whatever reason fight very hard to get bail.”