Fix Jamaica Justice System

I have noted recently that the government has announced a plan to extend the court facilities to the former National Commercial Bank (NCB) building on Barry Street which was purchased by the Urban Development Corporation (UDC).  The plan is to expand justice square and to add additional court rooms as well as adding more registries.  A significant amount of cash is being invested into this project in an effort to ensure that access to the justice system is more readily available.

An efficient judicial system is one of the requisites for an economy to grow as disputes that arise when doing business need to have a speedy resolution.  However as good as the intentions may be one does not fix a problem by simply throwing money at it.  One can spend significant sums improving the facilities but this alone will not ensure the success of the project.  In business one soon learns that the most important factor in achieving success is to have good systems in place.

The problems with our justice system will not be resolved with cash alone.  One of the factors contributing to the poor system is the continual postponement of cases for which in many cases there is no reasonable cause for delay.  Having more judges will not fix the problem if they do not hold the lawyers accountable.  Everyone who has ever been to court or served on jury duty will testify to the number of cases that were put off to later dates.  For the system to work cases need to be heard more quickly.

In addition the court system is highly dependent on other government sectors to supply important information to the process.  The criminal system needs forensic evidence and the department that does the work is under staffed and backlogged up to two years.  For matters related to family court there is a need for a report from children services and it is often the case that these reports are often not present at court time or are inadequately done.  Similarly many cases require a report from the police station and these reports are not forthcoming on a timely basis.

An important point of achieving success in business is that all parts of the system must be working well and must work together.  Thus; in order to fix the justice system all other support systems must be upgraded as well.  Failure to do so will result in the expected goals not being achieved.  When one is operating with limited resources it is even more important to see that the system is working well otherwise the money that is spent will go to waste. 

I know of many businesses that have failed due to the lack of proper systems; it is not my desire to see the justice system become one.