RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray is call­ing for the es­tab­lish­ment of a Ju­di­cial Over­sight Com­mit­tee to mon­i­tor the as­sign­ment of judges and en­sure trans­paren­cy.

Speak­ing dur­ing a de­bate of the Civ­il Di­vi­sion Bill, 2024, Paray said, “Ac­count­abil­i­ty is key to main­tain­ing pub­lic trust in our le­gal sys­tem. An in­de­pen­dent body will en­sure fair­ness in the al­lo­ca­tion of ju­di­cial re­sources.”

Paray said a crit­i­cal as­pect of this re­form is spe­cialised train­ing for judges and court staff.

“Judges need to be equipped with the nec­es­sary skills to man­age cas­es ef­fec­tive­ly with­in their re­spec­tive di­vi­sions,” he said. “With­out prop­er train­ing, we risk un­der­min­ing the very re­forms we seek to im­ple­ment.”

Not­ing that the Bill al­lows for elec­tron­ic hear­ings, which could rev­o­lu­tionise the court sys­tem, Paray warned that ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy is a con­cern for many cit­i­zens and it was im­por­tant to con­sid­er how to in­clude every­one, es­pe­cial­ly those in rur­al ar­eas or with lim­it­ed re­sources.

“In­cor­po­rat­ing dig­i­tal in­clu­sion pro­vi­sions will help bridge this gap,” he said

Paray al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the ex­clu­sion of cer­tain claims, such as defama­tion, from small claims courts. He said this could dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect low-in­come in­di­vid­u­als who may not have the means to pur­sue cas­es in high­er courts.

“We need to en­sure that vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions have ac­cess to jus­tice with­out fac­ing ad­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial bur­dens. Ex­tend­ing the ju­ris­dic­tion of small claims courts to ac­com­mo­date small-val­ue defama­tion cas­es would be a step in the right di­rec­tion,” he said

Paray said the pro­posed fi­nan­cial lim­its in Small Claims Courts could al­so act as a bar­ri­er as “in­di­vid­u­als with claims ex­ceed­ing these lim­its might be dis­cour­aged from seek­ing jus­tice.” This could cre­ate in­equities with­in the sys­tem, he said.

“It is cru­cial to re­assess these lim­its to en­sure that every­one has a fair op­por­tu­ni­ty to seek re­dress. We should ex­plore the pos­si­bil­i­ty of waiv­ing fees for low-in­come claimants to fur­ther pro­mote ac­cess,” he sug­gest­ed

Stress­ing the im­por­tance of pub­lic le­gal ed­u­ca­tion, the Ma­yaro MP rec­om­mend­ed aware­ness cam­paigns to help cit­i­zens un­der­stand the new struc­tures and process­es with­in the civ­il jus­tice sys­tem.

“We must en­sure that the pub­lic is in­formed about their rights and the av­enues avail­able to them,” he said. “This should be a pri­or­i­ty in our out­reach ef­forts.”

The new Bill in­tro­duces three main com­po­nents: Civ­il Courts, Small Claims Courts, and an Es­tates Ad­min­is­tra­tion Of­fice, each de­signed to han­dle spe­cif­ic types of cas­es, to re­duce the back­log in the High Court.

Paray said the es­tab­lish­ment of these courts would fa­cil­i­tate more ef­fi­cient pro­cess­ing of civ­il mat­ters and al­low for quick­er res­o­lu­tions.