Good morning, everyone. It is really heartening to see such a great response to the invitation extended to the Bar and to the members of the House of Assembly and other distinguished invitees to the second renewal of the formal opening of Supreme Court at the beginning of the Legal Year.
I extend a special welcome to our distinguished guests, His Excellency the Governor Mr. Peter Beckingham as well as members of the Government including the Hon. Porsha Stubbs and Hon Minister Donhue Gardiner and the Deputy Premier who sits at the Bar and other distinguished members of the House including the Leader of the Opposition, Hon Sharlene Cartwright Robinson. I would like to recognise the Jamaican Consul, Mr. Alan Hutchinson, and indeed all our distinguished guests.
At this time I am going to ask Pastor Pedro Williams of the Jericho Baptist Church to lead us in prayer.
RESPONSE TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
I note with interest the Hon Attorney General’s review of the important milestones attained by her Office over the last year and the not inconsiderable amount of legislation which was tabled before the House and the Bills circulated for discussion. I note with regret that the Judiciary was unable to advance any of the new legislation. which we indicated at the last opening that we would wish to do, including a new Court of Appeal Ordinance and amended Companies Ordinance. I will l be assisted in the administration of the Court soon with the recruitment of a new Registrar and a Court Administrator which is underway. This wioll permit me to devote more time to make proposals for new legislation, particularly as it relates to the effective administration of justice.
RESPONSE TO THE DPP
I am pleased to have a public occasion to welcome you to the jurisdiction and to say that, based on our previous experience of working together in the Cayman Islands that, that I am confident that your proposals for change in your Office and the changes you have already introduced will have a significant and positive impact on the criminal justice system.
We join you in mourning the loss of Senior Crown Counse,l Samantha Glinton, a powerful advocate and a woman of strong opinion who also had a great sense of humour. She is missed.
SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF THE SUPREME COURT FOR 2016
I would like to start as I did last year by recognising the several persons who have left the administration in 2015 and introducing those who have joined. At the top of the list is Chief Magistrate Clifton Warner whose contract came to an end In December 2015 when he reached the mandatory retirement age for public service employees under the Public Service Ordinance. The Chief Magistrate served the jurisdiction ably both as Magistrate since his first appointment in 2008 and as Chief Magistrate in 2011 consequent upon the elevation of my sister, Mrs. Justice Joyner, to the Supreme Court. His Honour Mr. Warner, a native of Trinidad, brought to his post in the Turks and Caicos Islands a wealth of experience having served as Magistrate and Senior Magistrate in his home country for some 12 years and thereafter as Senior Magistrate of Montserrat for 8 years prior to taking up his post here.
Mr. Warner, throughout his career on the Bench, remained a keen student of the law. He had an excellent library and spent many hours in research and shared his learning with both the Bar and his colleagues in the Magistracy with admirable generosity. In fact, I am told that, whenever consulted by his colleagues, he would spend hours researching the legal issues they raised, in order to assist. All who knew and worked with him were impressed by his dedication. I understand that, such was his dedication, when he first arrived, he held Court in the back office since there was no other room. He was a man of the utmost integrity with an excellent work ethic and he will be missed.
I regret that the pressure of work in all the Courts towards the end of the calendar year meant that his leaving was not marked with the usual ceremony and that we were all deprived of the opportunity to say farewell, but we take this opportunity to thank him for his service and to wish him well in his retirement, although I don’t for a second imagine he will actually retire.
The Supreme Court is again at full strength with the appointment of Mr. Justice Robert Shuster in January of last year. He took up the post in March. Mr. Justice Shuster is a judge of vast international experience having worked in Courts from Africa to the Pacific and the Caribbean. In the course of his professional life, Judge Shuster has been engaged in the training of prosecutors as well as the police and judicial officers and I trust that the Public Bar and the police both avail themselves of his formidable experience.
I would also like to welcome the new Magistrate for Grand Turk, Mrs. Kemar Anderson- Henry. Mrs. Anderson Henry is a native of Jamaica and comes to us from the Office of the Director of Pubic Prosecutions where she was Deputy Director. I was a member of those Chambers for a short while and can speak to what a valuable training ground it is. Mrs. Anderson- Henry led the field of candidates for appointment and we are very pleased to have her. I know from the staff in Grand Turk that she has settled in well and I have no doubt she has already earned the high regard of the community that she has come to serve.
The post of Registrar, which has been filled by 4 different people in the 4 years I have been here, is again vacant but the recruitment process is well underway and I believe candidates have been shortlisted. Those of you who are regular court users would have met Ms. Harewood who was recruited from Barbados. Ms. Harewood, treated the Bar and members of the public alike with unfailing courtesy and respect during her short time here and I take this opportunity to thank her for the work she did while she was with us.
I think we need to recognise that there is an issue, perhaps related to terms and conditions of service that needs to be addressed, as the high turnover in what is such an important post within the Judiciary has had a measurable impact on the effective administration of justice. The Registrar has a central role in ensuring matters are listed, and cases properly managed, records kept, staff made accountable in addition sitting as a junior judicial officer and we must make every effort not just to recruit but to retain persons who can properly discharge the functions of that office.
I would like to publicly recognise and thank the acting Registrar, Mrs. Nayasha Hatmin, who has both willingly and ably acted in the post whenever it was vacant to ensure the continuity necessary for the effective delivery of services by the Court. Her commitment to that goal is worthy of acknowledgement and I thank her for it.
Criminal Division 2015
In 2015, the Supreme Court dealt with some 92 criminal cases. 53 of those cases were new. 39 were cases brought forward from 2014, 12 from 2013, 2 from 2012 and 1 case was a matter first before the Court in 2011. I think that last was a retrial.
The fact that 12 cases were brought forward from 2013 is a matter which bears investigation in light of our target to dispose of custody cases within 4 months of the Sufficiency Hearing where the defendant is in custody and 6 months in bail cases. Equally concerning is the number of cases carried forward from 2014.
Of the 92 cases before the Court, 5 five were remitted to the Magistrates Court, 7 were withdrawn or discontinued at the Sufficiency Hearing stage, 3 were withdrawn or discontinued at the Plea and Directions Hearing, a further 20 were withdrawn at the Pre-Trial readiness stage or discontinued at trial whether by the Court or by the Crown for an insufficiency of evidence.
This figure is statistically significant and further inquiry is necessary to identify the reasons for the matters being discontinued by the Crown or dismissed at half time by the Court
37 of the cases which remained were resolved by way of a guilty plea, 16 Defendants were found guilty by the jury and 15 were found not guilty and discharged by the Court. This represents successful prosecution rate of 57% of all the cases that went before the Court, much higher than in 2014 where the rate was approximately 30%.
Guilty pleas assist the administration of justice. They save time and money and they spare to the victims of crime the often distressing ordeal of having to give evidence. They are the proper course when the evidence and Counsel’s instructions permit.
I would observe that 24 of the 37 Defendants who pleaded guilty did so either on the date of trial or during the course of trial. While even a late plea assists in the effective administration of justice, the machinery of issuing juror summons and empaneling a jury will have already taking place with the attendant costs and I would just take this moment to remind Counsel who practice at the Criminal Bar that the plea and directions hearings which are a statutory requirement is the proper time for the indication of a guilty plea and would invite them to consider the practice direction 1 /2009 issued by Sir Gordon Ward, former Chief Justice for these Islands which are conveniently available on the Bar Council website.
Finally, I would note this last statistic, that of all the criminal matters sent to the Supreme Court in 2015, 77 or 84% of them were charges relating to offences alleged to have been committed on Provo, 13 arose out of incidents occurring in Grand Turk, 1 matter originated in South Caicos and another in North.
Civil and Commercial Division
As I observed last year, the civil and commercial cases do not lend themselves to the same analysis. Here we have adopted a different measure for recording efficiency in the Civil and Commercial Court by striving to set a 3 month limit for delivery of judgments. Regrettably, given the administrative demands of the post and the added remit of Accounting Officer which has been mine since our former Registrar David Chetwynd left, it has not always been possible for me to keep to what is, in reality, an achievable timetable for delivery of judgments. Hopefully, with the newly established Court Administrator post, for which we have identified someone who I regard as an exceptional candidate, in addition the soon to be recruited Registrar I will be able to divest myself of many of the administrative and other duties that have put so much pressure on my time.
There were 241 cases in the civil and commercial division, down from272 last year. 63 divorces were filed and 28 decrees were made absolute which leaves more than 50% of all the persons wishing to leave their marriages still married. I would pause to note that the number of divorces have remained constant for the last 4 years which if, the rate of marriages has remained the same, would mean that we are no more unhappy or less committed to marriage than before.
There were 6 criminal appeals from the Magistrates Court to the Supreme Court, an all time low down from 22 in 2012 and 2013. There were and 9 in 2014 which was the start of the downward trend. The declining number of appeals, which demonstrates that the decisions of the Magistrates are sound in law and are so regarded by the Bar, is worthy of note.
THE COURT OF APPEAL
We are fortunate in the Turks and Caicos Islands to have distinguished jurist Sir Edward Zacca as the President of our Court of Appeal. Sir Edward was knighted by her Majesty the Queen in 2015 for services to the Courts of Appeal in Bermuda, Turks & Caicos Islands and Cayman Islands.
Sir Edward was recognised for making “an exceptional contribution in guiding the development of the law in Overseas Territories as the President of the Court of Appeal in three UK Overseas Territories. Bermuda and Cayman Islands have large financial service industries and their growth and reputation have depended heavily on their internationally respected courts and maintaining the confidence of the business and wider community in the legal institutions.
It was also noted that Sir Edward’s membership of the Privy Council since 1996, as well as his judicial service in Jamaica for over 38 years, both reinforce and spread that positive influence more widely.
At last year’s Opening, I announced that we had earmarked the installation of Digital recording equipment as the Judicial Administration’s most urgent goal given the anecdotal evidence is that it currently takes 18 months for a transcript to be available for an appeal. We have installed digital recording equipment in both criminal courtrooms on Provo. This year we will put digital recording systems in my hearing room as well as in all the Magistrates Court as well as videoconferencing equipment as we try to reduce unnecessary travel between Grand Turk and Providenciales for remand prisoners and seek to facilitate the taking of evidence from witnesses overseas with resulting saving on costs. We have recruited a court reporter and hope to recruit another before the end of this financial year. In order to achieve our goal of reducing the time it takes for appeals to be heard to no more than 3 months, we propose to add another two Court Reporters to our Human Resources budget in the upcoming financial year.
For the year 2015, the Court of Appeal presided over three sessions. They were held in the months of January, May and September. The total number of appeals completed for the year is 39, 16 of which were criminal appeals and 23 were civil appeals. In 2014, the Court of Appeal heard 47 appeals. I am not sure if there were simply fewer appeals were lodged or, as I suspect, several appeals were not heard because of the continuing difficulty of producing transcripts of trials recorded on the old recording device in the Provo Supreme Courthouse.
I understand there are very few of those matters left. When those appeals are concluded, transcripts should be produced with greater ease given the superior recording quality of the digital recording systems.
1st Session January 12 – 29, 2015
In January, there was a three week session which ran from January 12th to January 29th 2015. During that session 10 criminal appeals were listed. 7 of the appeals were heard. There were three adjournments, four of the appeals were dismissed and three appeals allowed. On the civil side there were thirteen appeals listed with one appeal being withdrawn, one struck out, and one was adjourned. A total of ten civil appeals were disposed of that session.
2nd Session May 26 – June 5, 2015
In the May/June session, which ran for only two weeks, seven criminal appeals were listed, three were adjourned and four heard. Of the four that were heard three of the appeals were dismissed and only one allowed. All six of the listed civil appeals for that session were heard.
3rd Session September 7 – 18 2015
In September all five of the criminal appeals listed were heard. Two of them were dismissed, two of them were allowed and there was an appeal that was struck out. Of the seven listed civil appeals, six were heard and completed, one is listed for continuation later this month.
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I mentioned earlier the newly created post of Court Administrator who is intended to perform a similar role within the Judicial Administration as Permanent Secretaries perform in the Government Ministries. We are exceedingly lucky to have identified a candidate with not only legal but project management experience who will be able to bring to fruition our plans for a website where information on the Courts can be made available to the public including decisions of the Court, the digitisation of the Courts. The post-holder will also design and implement our e-court project intended to allow attorneys to electronically file documents with the courts and pay filing fees. We hope to create a comprehensive e-filing system that addresses document filing, case management, records management and public access to information.
The Court Administrator will also be charged with establishing a court case management system which should allow us to capture important information from the Magistrates Court in order to anticipate and meet the needs of those very important Courts that are seized of most of the criminal matters that come before the Courts. While the Magistrates Courts have provided me with the number of cases disposed of by the Magistrates, no information has been provided with respect to the intake of cases for a fair assessment to be made as to whether the courts need more resources and if so, what those additional resources would be.
In the Magistrate’s Court on Providenciales, 709 criminal cases were filed. 1266 traffic matters were also filed. There were 290 civil proceedings, 69 domestic proceedings, 22 adoptions and a whopping number 959 matters brought by the National Insurance. These matters were handled by both Magistrates in Provo. In the Magistrates Court in Grand Turk 150 criminal matters were filed, 49 traffic, 51 domestic proceedings and civil proceedings 65.
Before I bring this morning’s proceedings to a close, I would like to say a special word of thanks to the Commissioner and the Assistant Commissioner of Police and Inspector Smith for arranging the Police Band and the Guard of Honour.
The Judges and I would be pleased if you would join us outside for some refreshments. Given our numbers, a tent has been set up outside and I will ask our security officer to open the door.
