Robert Alon­zo

Ed­i­tor

The In­dus­tri­al Court is set to de­liv­er an un­prece­dent­ed record num­ber of a to­tal of 45 judg­ments over a pe­ri­od of eight days, be­gin­ning this morn­ing.

Of that num­ber, 26 will be de­liv­ered in a four-day pe­ri­od be­tween to­day and Fri­day—ex­cept Thurs­day which is a pub­lic hol­i­day—Cor­pus Christi.

The re­main­ing 19 judg­ments will al­so be de­liv­ered over a four-day pe­ri­od next week as next Fri­day is al­so a pub­lic hol­i­day—Labour Day.

The 45 judg­ments were writ­ten by In­dus­tri­al Court judges who each wrote their re­spec­tive find­ings while work-from-home mea­sures were in place for them dur­ing the COVID-19 lock­down pe­ri­od.

Of the 26 judg­ments to be de­liv­ered from to­day—21 per­tains to wrong­ful dis­missal/ter­mi­na­tion of ser­vices

Two oth­ers are to be de­liv­ered for break­down in ne­go­ti­a­tions, one in re­la­tion to ma­ter­ni­ty ben­e­fits, one in re­spect to uni­lat­er­al al­ter­ation of job po­si­tion and the oth­er in con­nec­tion with forced re­tire­ment.

Next week, the 19 judg­ments to be de­liv­ered are main­ly for wrong­ful dis­missal/ter­mi­na­tion of ser­vices.

In an in­ter­view, the court’s pres­i­dent Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix not­ed that the COVID-19 re­stric­tions did not pre­vent judges and the court’s sup­port­ing staff such as note-tak­ers and tran­scrip­tion­ists from com­plet­ing the task.

She not­ed that this was done de­spite the se­vere short­age of note-tak­ers and tran­scrip­tion­ists at the In­dus­tri­al Court.

Thomas-Fe­lix said al­though there were no sit­tings, these sup­port­ing staff mem­bers worked around the clock, al­so un­der the work-from-home en­vi­ron­ment, to en­sure judges were pro­vid­ed with the nec­es­sary pa­per­work to write their re­spec­tive judg­ments.

She said as the sup­port­ing staff com­plet­ed the pa­per­work, each judge be­gan writ­ing their judg­ment.

She al­so com­mend­ed the staff and judges for go­ing the ex­tra mile with­in a two-week time span to com­plete the 45 judg­ments.

In a let­ter sent to stake­hold­ers. Thomas-Fe­lix said every­one was look­ing for the re­sump­tion of the In­dus­tri­al Court from to­day.

The let­ter said, “While many things have changed and will con­tin­ue to change go­ing for­ward, one thing which re­mains con­stant is our com­mit­ment to your safe­ty when you vis­it our build­ings. Health and Safe­ty and in­fec­tion con­trol will con­tin­ue to be a top pri­or­i­ty for us at the court.”

She said some new mea­sures will be im­ple­ment­ed.

She not­ed that all fil­ings, open court hear­ings, case man­age­ment and con­cil­i­a­tion hear­ings will con­tin­ue to be con­duct­ed in a safe and com­fort­able en­vi­ron­ment.

“To this end, you will be re­quired to wear a mask to en­ter the Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do build­ings. Up­on en­try, the court’s per­son­nel will con­duct tem­per­a­ture tests, please note, that the In­dus­tri­al Court re­serves the right to de­ny en­try to per­sons who ex­hib­it flu-like symp­toms, such as el­e­vat­ed tem­per­a­tures.”

In her let­ter, she said peo­ple will be re­quired to use the hand sani­tis­ers pro­vid­ed when they en­ter the build­ings.

The wit­ness rooms have been re-paint­ed and re-out­fit­ted.

Those at­tend­ing the courts have been ad­vised that there will no longer be mag­a­zines, news­pa­pers, etc. in these rooms since these items are dif­fi­cult to dis­in­fect.

The court will be in­tro­duc­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing guide­lines and pro­to­cols.

She has al­so urged stake­hold­ers to re­strict the num­ber of at­ten­dees to court hear­ings to on­ly the par­ties di­rect­ly in­volved in these hear­ings.

Wit­ness­es are re­quired to re­main in a wit­ness room un­til they are re­quest­ed to give ev­i­dence.

She said since March, 16, the court’s se­cu­ri­ty has sole con­trol of the en­trances and the ex­its of the court build­ings.

As a re­sult, the court’s se­cu­ri­ty will open and close all the doors to the en­trances and the ex­its to pre­vent the staff and the pub­lic from hav­ing any con­tact with door knobs or door han­dles.

On March 17, drop box­es were placed at the court’s en­trances.

These drop box­es are to be used by all lit­i­gants to sub­mit ev­i­dence and ar­gu­ments, wit­ness state­ments, cor­re­spon­dence and oth­er doc­u­ments.

Doc­u­ments from the drop box­es are col­lect­ed and processed and par­ties can col­lect their stamped copies ap­prox­i­mate­ly half- an- hour af­ter the time of the ini­tial de­posit in the drop box­es.

She made it clear that fil­ing of cas­es will no longer be per­mit­ted at the counter of the reg­istry.