Reducing court backlogs remains a key priority for the Judiciary, with Chief Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh outlining plans to upgrade court facilities, improve case management and expand livestreaming of selected proceedings to increase public access and transparency.
Speaking to members of the media, he stressed that addressing delays requires more efficient court processes and closer monitoring of cases.
“Judges are not hired to be popular. If we are hired to be popular, then we will be making decisions. We will be, ‘What would would the public think, about this. What would the public think about that?’ And judges have to apply law, and we have to apply the law to facts, and evidence and it come on the basis of the evidence that we have.”
Following the 2027 Budget allocation to the Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago, Chief Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh explained that the Judiciary is set to upgrade court facilities across Trinidad and Tobago.
“Among those priority projects are the San Fernando Supreme Court, the Family Court in San Fernando, improvements to O’Meara facility there, improvements to Tobago, developing bigger VACCs, that is Virtual Access Court Rooms, the prisons in Arouca. We also have a programme for improving the various Magistrates’ Courts and so on. Now that is important in reducing backlog.”
The Judiciary has also started prioritising what the Chief Justice described as the “oldest of the old” criminal cases, some of which have been in the system for 20 years or longer.
“Some of these cases have been around for 15, 20 years or so. Some of them, they’re not going to go anywhere, but we have to make sure that we have dotted all our i’s and crossed all our t’s. Sometimes there are cases on our docket because a warrant was issued for the accused because the accused didn’t turn up. And we have to find the accused. So the police have to find the accused. Sometimes the accused has passed on. So it’s a lot of things that have to be done so that we are putting cases on a track with case management so that the judges are doing closer monitoring of the cases.”
The Judiciary is also examining how court proceedings are conducted as it seeks to improve efficiency and increase the number of cases resolved.
Regarding virtual hearings, the Chief Justice noted that historical figures show Magistrates’ Courts disposed of an average of 75,000 to 80,000 cases annually before the pandemic but recorded significantly lower figures in subsequent years.
On the livestreaming of matters, the Chief Justice noted that it has become another initiative being expanded to improve public access to court proceedings.
“We’ve started on a limited scale. We have to maintain, as you say, the integrity of the process. So we’re not going to live stream family law cases. We’re not going to live stream cases involving children. But public law cases involving Judicial Review and Constitutional claims and heavy commercial claims that the public might have an interest in. Those are the kinds of cases, criminal cases as well.”
Although the greatest challenge remains translating funding and reforms into measurable reductions in court backlogs, the Chief Justice noted that the Judiciary is working to improve efficiency, strengthen case management and ensure matters are resolved in a more timely manner.