Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn says her office is now in the process of formalising and publishing a disclosure protocol to be more accountable and transparent to the public.

Llewellyn is hoping that the process will be completed by February so that the accompanying website can be launched.

The law requires that the prosecution must make disclosures to the defence of all relevant material in its possession in relation to criminal cases.

Llewellyn said yesterday that the website would make her office more accountable in the eyes of the public.

She said information would also be given as to where a case is being prosecuted.

She said in going forward with the process, they had obtained assistance from the Canadian justice department to formalise the prosecutorial best practices in keeping pace with case laws dealing with disclosure.

Llewellyn made the disclosure yesterday at the opening of the Hilary session of the Home Circuit Court.

She said a number of problems beset the justice system last term. One of them was a lack of jurors and, as a result, one of the criminal courts could not sit for three weeks.

She also pointed out that two of the perpetual problems were lack of service of summonses and the lethargy in the society in regards to jury duty.

Work to be done

Llewellyn stressed that despite the challenges and lack of resources - her office would try to ensure that a significant amount of work was done during this term.

There are 595 cases listed for trial this term of which 346 are murder cases, 67 rape cases and 48 carnal abuse cases. The previous term had 588 cases; 54 cases were disposed of and the remainder added to this term's list.

Justice Carol Beswick, who opened the new session, said it was clear from looking at the matters that there was a backlog. She said she appreciated the pledges from the lawyers for the prosecution and the defence to clear them. She referred to reports from the resident magistrates' courts that delays in those courts were contributed to by the absence of medical reports. She pointed out that the Supreme Court was also plagued with the lack of medical reports and post-mortem reports.

Beswick said there were also the perennial problems of prisoners being transported to court late, broken down motor vehicles or inadequate motor vehicles to transport the prisoners.

According to Beswick, Chief Justice Zaila McCalla is aware of the problems facing the justice system and is working assiduously to reduce them. She said starting this month, workshops would be held to assist in alleviating the backlog.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com