At one of the meetings of the regional media organisations, in which Anguilla holds membership, a well-known legal luminary told a seasoned, but gentle journalist, that the press should not be afraid to criticise the judiciary. The newspaper reporter, looking at the lawyer with a degree of astonishment, remarked: “yes, but then they will lock me up for contempt of court.” Well, that might be so if one behaves in a certain way but, for the most part, the court everywhere is supposed to be a democratic institution, tolerant of the views of all and sundry.

The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, with regional headquarters in Castries, St. Lucia, is the one we in this area are most familiar with. Those at the helm for sometime – Sir Dennis Byron, who is on a three-year appointment in Tanzania with the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Acting Chief Justice, Mr. Adrian Saunders - are jurists who are believed to have no qualms about persons criticising the judiciary.
In fact, they, with the cooperation of their colleagues, have taken an introspective examination of the court system and have become major reformers, casting away some of the old ways of doing things and substituting new procedures. The media have not had the opportunity to be critical of the systems. This may mainly have been due to their limited legal knowledge and therefore incapability to recommend reforms rather than fear to express an opinion. Another reason is that the justices have moved so quickly to undertake the reforms that there has been little room for media criticism.

One of the complaints usually heard about the Magistrate’s Court, and the High Court in particular, is the long time taken for certain matters to be dealt with. In the past, the situation was considerably worse with a big backlog of cases in Anguilla and other jurisdictions. For some time, therefore, the courts appeared to be out of order by the delays thus affecting the administration of justice. But things are now changing as the judiciary appears to be following a process of self-regulation, thereby sparing the media the unpleasant and probably risky task to be critical of the system.

Among the steps taken to reduce the long delay of cases coming before the High Court, has been the appointment of two Masters to function like Judges in Chambers. This has been quite effective in clearing up some of the backlog. Since then, they have become fully-fledged judges and two younger persons have replaced them to continue the useful work.

Another step has been the introduction of a court-connected mediation system where litigants can have a mediated solution to their disputes, rather than one imposed by the court. This too is intended to allow for a quick case flow through the regional mediation centres.

A third step is the recently-announced decision by the Acting Chief Justice to re-structure the Magistrates’ Courts which, he said, are not included within the judiciary’s administrative chain of command. Mr. Saunders said this anomaly fragments and weakens not only the Magistrates’ Courts, but also the entire judicial branch of Government. The proposed changes will result in a merger of the Magistrates’ Courts and the High Court to create specialised court divisions which, of necessity, will improve the functioning of the judicial system.

Other matters to be addressed are the introduction of legal aid for persons needing this type of assistance; an expansion of the jury register to allow new persons to be called up for service rather than the same people every time; and the need to increase allowances for jurors, particularly those who are self-employed and cannot afford a great loss of working time. There is a need here to restrict the appointment of the resident judge to Anguilla only instead of sharing services with other islands in order to handle local matters more speedily. A small but important change is the decision to introduce recording equipment in the courts to assist in note-taking.

The legal brains behind the court reforms are to be complimented for all the steps that are being taken to bring order and proper functioning to the court system.

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