Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE LONG delay in getting trial dates for civil suits in the Supreme Court has left many lawyers and litigants frustrated.
Trial dates are now being fixed for 2008 and some lawyers fear that before the end of the year dates will only be available in 2009.
Glenville Murphy, a 63-year-old farmer and retired stevedore from the hills of St. Catherine cannot understand why his false imprisonment suit which was filed in 1998 should be set for trial in 2008.
"This is an injustice and a suppression of truth," Mr. Murphy said in frustration last week.
Mr. Murphy is one of several litigants who have written to Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe and Howard Hamilton, Q.C, Public Defender about the inordinate delay.
CASE DRAWN OUT
On July 4 this year Mr. Murphy sent a letter to the Chief Justice which was headed "Carnality of a Case Management Conference I attended."
Mr. Murphy emphasised in the letter that his suit was filed in 1998 and, since that time, he received two trial dates, the last trial date was set for December 2003.
"It became drawn out because it was being said that any matter to be tried must face a case management conference, according to the new regulations of the court. I got a reply from the case management about 18 months ago, to face the case management on July 4, 2005. "
Mr. Murphy disclosed that he went to the case management conference and "to my surprise I was being told about a trial date sometime in 2008".
Mr. Murphy is not pleased with the delay and he says "in my view I see this decision as suppressing to the fact of life in regards to my justice".
The Public Defender has also written to the Chief Justice informing him of Mr. Murphy's complaint and has called for his intervention in the matter.
A court official said that since Mr. Murphy wrote to the Chief Justice complaining about the delay, a letter was sent to Mr. Murphy's lawyer two months ago informing him that he could make arrangement to have an earlier date.
The court official said Murphy could get an earlier date if he wished, because there were times when trial dates were changed for various reasons.
Some lawyers have said that the Civil Procedure Rules of 2002 which came into effect in January 2003 have contributed to some extent to the backlog of civil cases.
NEW RULES
They explain that all cases which were filed in the Supreme Court before the new rules have to go through all the stages just like the new cases. But some lawyers say that the older cases such as those from the 1990s should be given the early trial dates.
The new rules make provisions for all civil cases to go to case management conference and then to pre-trial review which are presided over by judges.
One of the overriding objectives of the rules is to ensure that cases are dealt with expeditiously and fairly.
"The mission statement of the court of a timely delivery of justice is being frustrated and the whole judicial system urgently demands a re-assessment ," attorney-at-law Delroy Chuck said last month.
He emphasised that new processes , methods , ways and means must be found for cases to be adjudicated on promptly, he added.
JUDICIAL TIME
He disclosed that he had submitted to Parliament that not only should we look for more judges, but there was the need to examine whether judicial time for trial cases especially in the lower courts should be increased.
"We should aim to ensure that our courtrooms try cases for at least 30 to 40 hours per week and that may well entail two shifts," Mr. Chuck said.
He explained that at the moment there were less than 20 hours per week for cases in the Resident Magistrate's courts and the Supreme Court.
Some of the Resident Magistrate's courts rarely sit on Friday afternoons, and at times some did not sit on other afternoons. He also pointed out that at times many of the civil courts at the Supreme Court were idle during the week because the cases broke down.
"If we function for at least 30 hours for the week then twice as many cases would be adjudicated on," he added.
Mr. Chuck says from experience, the Court of Appeal is the only court where once your case is ready you can get it on the list at short notice. He said that was not his experience in other courts." Even in landlord and tenant cases, you are thinking of even years not months and that started from the mid 1990s,." he disclosed.
Attorney-at-law Raphael Codlin who represented a Jamaica Public Service customer who got judgment in a case this month which was filed in the Supreme Court in 1998 has found the long delay to be "abominable."
Marcia Haughton , a businesswoman of Palmers Cross, Clarendon won her negligence suit against the JPS. Mr. Justice Wesley James awarded her a total of $2,750,000 but she had to wait for six years for her case to be tried. Fire from the wires of a JPS pole had destroyed her bar and shop on November 11, 1996. The award was for damage to the building and for loss of goods.
Mr. Codlin says the processes through which litigants have to go to reach the trial list is too tedious.
One of the solutions to reduce the long delay he says is that parties should be given specific time to exchange papers. He describes the process of case management as wasting judicial time because at times parties had to attend case management conference three or four times.
Many of the things judges are ruling on are things that should be left for settlement between lawyers and papers filed without judicial supervision, " he says.
