IN JAMAICA (EXCELLENT ARTICLE by TANESHA MUNDLE) : Bar association head links JAMAICA's economic woes to state of justice system ....What Do You Think?

Observer staff reporter mundlet@jamaicaobserver.com  Tuesday, April 28, 2015  

PRESIDENT of the Jamaican Bar Association (JBA) Donovan Walker has linked Jamaica's poor economic performance to the little attention paid to the justice system by successive administrations.

PRESIDENT of the Jamaican Bar Association (JBA) Donovan Walker

"Our successive governments, the current one and the past ones, don't give it the attention that they really should, and a lot of people don't realise that there is a direct correlation between justice system and proper law reform," Walker told the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview.

"There is a direct correlation between the justice system and doing business in Jamaica. If we fix our justice system concomitant to that will be increased confidence and increase in economic activities," he added.

Furthermore, the JBA president said, "It's important for politicians to form a mindset that links the justice system, its improvement, and how people will respond in terms of foreign direct investment and local investment."

Arguing that the justice ministry is neither "sexy" nor "easy to run", Walker maintained that it is important for the ministry to set small goals and deal with them one step at a time.

At present, he said there are myriad issues to be addressed in the justice system, but the priorities for the association are matters of court improvement; increasing the number of magistrates and judges; relocation of the Traffic Court; increasing the stipend for jurors; creation of a comprehensive system to collect and determine court statistics; and refurbishing the Family Court and Gun Court.

Walker said that those issues were outlined to the finance and justice ministers in a meeting last December, and he was happy that a number of the matters, including an increased stipend for jurors and the doubling of fees paid to attorneys for legal aid duties, were addressed.

But he said more needs to be done.

"We need to look at rehabilitating our courtrooms; there are some that are in a worst way than others: St James, St Ann, Mandeville, and Falmouth, those courtrooms, what are holding them up is termites in some instances, and I think we physically need to do something now," he said.

"Every court registrar should have a fax machine and scanner to facilitate electronic filing and servicing of documents in an efficient manner, and in 2015 there are many registrars across the length of breadth of Jamaica that don't have that," Walker stated further. more