Courts face serious backlog of cases
The Supreme Court is in session and will deal with eleven criminal cases ranging from murder to forgery. But while it is hoped justice will move swiftly for these cases, there are over two hundred cases backlogged for Belize City Magistrate and Supreme Courts and an untold number in the rest of the country. Additional arrests are being made each week adding to the already full legal plate. News Five wanted to find out why it seems to take so long for cases to be resolved and the consequences of such lengthy delays.
It’s supposed to be a simple procedure. The police investigate a case, then the file goes over to the Office of the Director of the Public Prosecutions, where the D.P.P. or a member of the crown counsel reviews the case to make sure there is sufficient evidence against the accused. If there is, the case then proceeds to court. However, over the past few years, case files have been stock piling and today there are over two hundred cases over a year old, still left to go to court. Attorney General Dickie Bradley says the Government is very concerned about the problem which has to be solved for the good of the public.
Dickie Bradley, Attorney General
“Let us not abuse the court process; let us not waste the judges’ time or Magistrates’ time. Let us not have the citizens leaving their jobs, up and down. I mean the amount of instances I know of people who are in prison right now, it is in fact an injustice.”
Bradley believes the problem begins shortly after an arrest has been made. He says, while he understands the police do have a difficult job, they must be careful when taking someone into custody.
Dickie Bradley
“You don’t go and pick up somebody, lock them up and then start to investigate. You go for that person after you are satisfied that you have enough evidence to bring a charge. This business of rounding up people, locking them up and getting on with the investigations, many months after, is what leads to all the backlog, the clogging up of the system.”
According to Adolph Lucas, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the police department’s investigation is then further delayed when they are unable to find witnesses who may be able to pick out the suspect in an ID parade.
Adolph Lucas, D.P.P.
“Quite a number of times the police might know who can assist them in their investigation but witnesses for one or more reasons, might not want to give a statement or assist the police through fear or through relationship with this particular accused or for various reasons as I say.”
This breakdown in the investigation then causes the police to hold onto the case file for a long period of time. Then there is the problem with the police prosecutors themselves. According to Sharon Frazer who was recently appointed as Chief Police Prosecutor in an effort to bring cases before the judiciary in an orderly and timely manner, the police are overworked and some are not even interested in prosecuting.
Sharon Frazer, Chief Police Prosecutor
“If they have to come up here and at night they have to do special duty, then when does it leave time to do research and come up here with one or two attorneys, experienced attorneys, senior counsels. How can they prepare for their cases.”
She says for one reason or another, too little time to prepare, witnesses who fail to show up in court–including police officers–and other problems then force the prosecutor to ask for an adjournment. This means people remanded to Hattieville then have to wait even longer for their cases to be heard. Frazer says the time has come to replace police prosecutors with civil prosecutors.
Sharon Frazer
“With the civil prosecutors with them at least you know you can make professionals out of them, they want to do it. Hence with the police, they are assigned to come and prosecute. Half of them don’t want to prosecute, they see it as a confining section; they don’t see it as somebody who want to prosecute.”
However, not all the delay is caused by the investigating police or the prosecution branch. According to Lucas, whenever the Supreme Court criminal session is on, sometimes they do not have the time to deal with matters inside the Magistrate Court.
Adolph Lucas
“When the Supreme Court criminal session is on each crown counsel is allotted with files, cases to prosecute. When we are engaged at Supreme Court; we concentrate on the cases. We are dealing with cases. You have to concentrate because you have to deal with witnesses. When you are finished for the day, you have to go over the evidence, what the witnesses said, look at how that statement is compatible with the rest of the investigation or the statement in the rest of the file.”
Furthermore, Lucas says sometimes doctors take too long to submit their medical report. In some cases, the doctor may not even be in the country. In an effort to expedite cases, Lucas says early last year his office had a meeting with the police department.
Adolph Lucas
“So we have asked the police to speed up, to send the case file here so we can see whether there is evidence here. If there is evidence, we are going to direct the Magistrate to strike out, sorry tell the police to withdraw the charge. So that is another way of how we keep abreast of matters that are before the Magistrate.”
The D.P.P. also says there are a number of cases from the districts that should go to the Supreme Court but the files are being held by the Magistrates. He says he has written to each district Magistrate asking them to submit a list of all indictable cases pending. He says once he gets the list he will then write to the officers in charge of each district asking them to please hurry up and send the case files for these cases.
Adolph Lucas says the turnover for crown counsel has been very high. He says since 1997 three have left slowing down the process even further.
