More mon­ey, more mag­is­trates, and spank­ing new build­ings will not clear up the back­log of cas­es in the mag­is­trate courts.In­stead, bring­ing an end to this peren­ni­al headache calls for greater ded­i­ca­tion and speed­i­er de­ter­mi­na­tion of cas­es at the pri­ma­ry lev­el of the jus­tice sys­tem in T&T.

This is the ad­vice from at­tor­ney Ed­win K Roop­nar­ine who cel­e­brat­ed his gold­en an­niver­sary as a le­gal prac­ti­tion­er in June.

Speak­ing from his Har­ris Street, San Fer­nan­do, cham­bers, an af­fa­ble Roop­nar­ine said that his half-a-cen­tu­ry jour­ney in the hal­lowed halls of the sys­tem has left him con­cerned about the state of this coun­try's ju­di­cial op­er­a­tions. Nev­er­the­less, he en­joyed and is still en­joy­ing every mo­ment of the ride."I would not change it for any­thing else in the world. My jour­ney has been chal­leng­ing but it is an ex­treme­ly ful­fill­ing event," he con­fessed.

Roop­nar­ine, who stead­fast­ly re­fus­es to re­veal his age but looks and acts like a 60-some­thing year old, was born in Debe, at­tend­ed the dis­trict's CM School, St Paul's EC in Les Ef­forts, and be­came a school teacher be­fore be­ing at­tract­ed to the le­gal pro­fes­sion. He left these shores to pur­sue his am­bi­tion in Lon­don, via Genoa, Italy, by boat.

Af­ter qual­i­fy­ing at the Mid­dle Tem­ple, Roop­nar­ine, who said he re­spects every­one from judge to jan­i­tor, is firm in his con­vic­tion about what is re­quired to clear up the black­log of cas­es in the mag­is­trate courts.Is the peren­ni­al crit­i­cism over what some would say is the ap­palling slow de­liv­ery of jus­tice jus­ti­fied?

Un­hesi­tat­ing­ly, he re­spond­ed: "Yes. Some­times it is jus­ti­fied and what is need­ed in the mag­is­trate court is the speed­i­er de­ter­mi­na­tion of cas­es be­cause most of these of­fences are mi­nor in na­ture."They are not be­ing dealt with as quick­ly as they should and you may ask what the cause is."I am not the one to pon­tif­i­cate on that, but I can on­ly make ob­ser­va­tion and it means we do not need more mag­is­trates. That is not the an­swer as far as I am con­cerned.

"We do not need more build­ings or more mon­ey. What you need is more ded­i­ca­tion in clear­ing the list and in­sist­ing that mat­ters when they are fixed to go up, they should go up."Jus­tice must be seen there first­ly, if we are go­ing to have a so­ci­ety that be­lieves in law and or­der and when we strength­en down there we can strength­en the top."

This sit­u­a­tion he ar­gues can be reme­died and it can be eas­i­ly solved. What about the claim over the years that there was one law for the rich and an­oth­er for the poor?Roop­nar­ine, who has two sons who are at­tor­neys and one who is a med­ical doc­tor, said: "I have ap­peared be­fore al­most every civ­il court judge since 1975, and I have found that they have all been very fair, con­cise and forth­right in their de­lib­er­a­tions and rul­ings.

"But at the end of the day, every judge is look­ing at de­liv­er­ing jus­tice in a fair man­ner and are guid­ed strict­ly by the law, and I can hon­est­ly say that their de­ci­sions have been pru­dent and jus­ti­fi­able. Of course, you will find that even if their mat­ters have been ap­pealed it is the right of at­tor­neys to seek the best for their clients.

"I, how­ev­er, feel that we can be proud of the work done by our judges be­cause apart from ho­n­our­ing the prin­ci­ples of their job, they are acute­ly aware that we live un­der the rule of law and any at­tempt to do oth­er­wise is not be­ing truth­ful to our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic way of life."Roop­nar­ine nev­er­the­less is hap­py with the many oth­er changes in the pro­fes­sion since he was called to bar.