A RETIRED judge has lambasted delays in the local court system, stating that no excuse can be made for not having enough money to hire more judges.
In the Appeal Court judgement in a case involving former Barbados Youth Service recruit Elvis Alexander, Justice of Appeal Peter Williams spoke at length about the delays in the local court system, noting that the case had taken 11 years between the date of the offence and the decision.
Alexander’s ten-year sentence imposed in 2007 for stashing a gun ended last Friday after the Court of Appeal, presided over by Chief Justice Sir Marston Gibson, considered the time he had spent on remand. The panel deemed that Alexander had already served the time and that he should be released.
In the 75-page judgement written by Williams and read by Justice of Appeal Sandra Mason, Williams implied that Barbados had no excuse in terms of lack of resources or too few judges, stating that the obligation to render justice within a reasonable time was “not confined to rich states or states that are well endowed with judicial resources (but) extends to all states to manage and organise their judicial systems so that they comply with and do not infringe (this) constitutional and human rights obligation”.
