Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

The South­ern As­sem­bly of Lawyers (ASL) is pre­pared to mount a fierce chal­lenge to stop a vari­a­tion to the Fi­nance Act which has in­creased the lim­it of pet­ty civ­il cas­es to $50,000, which they say is bound to ex­ac­er­bate the back­log of cas­es in the mag­is­trates court.This means that any le­gal dis­pute with­in that sum, in­clud­ing mi­nor mo­tor ve­hi­cle in­sur­ance claims, will now be de­ter­mined in the mag­is­trates courts, adding to the al­ready over­bur­dened sys­tem.

Pres­i­dent of the ASL Im­ran Khan said the amend­ment was passed and as­sent­ed to last month with no con­sul­ta­tion from the Law As­so­ci­a­tion or oth­er stake­hold­ers.The vari­a­tion rais­es the pet­ty civ­il court lim­it from $15,000 to $50,000. This means that civ­il cas­es which were once heard in the High Court have now been trans­ferred to the mag­is­trates court.

In an in­ter­view, Khan said the vari­a­tion to the Act was meant to free up the num­ber of cas­es in the High Court but that had back­fired be­cause noth­ing was put in place to deal with the in­creased num­ber of cas­es at the mag­is­trates court.

"The amend­ments came in with­out much fan­fare and we are not aware that the pet­ty civ­il was in­creased. When the word start­ed to go around we planned to have an of­fi­cial sem­i­nar to in­vite cor­re­spon­dence and feed­back on the amend­ments so as to seek con­sen­sus on the way for­ward," Khan said.Based on feed­back, Khan said most at­tor­neys were up­set with the new law.

"In the­o­ry it sounds good but it has had the op­po­site ef­fect. If prop­er ma­chin­ery is not put in place it will lead to frus­tra­tion. In the High Court the sys­tem is much faster than mag­is­trates court. When the mat­ter goes to mag­is­trates court, cas­es are ad­journed for months and years so this law is on­ly caus­ing frus­tra­tion," he added.

Say­ing lit­i­gants would not ben­e­fit, Khan said in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties where there was one mag­is­trate court, cas­es would be pend­ing for years.

Mean­while, for­mer vice-pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion Hen­drick­son Se­u­nath, SC, said it was noth­ing new for laws to be passed with­out prop­er con­sul­ta­tion."Their think­ing be­hind this was to speed up the process at the High Court but it has not worked. There are larg­er is­sues here that must be dealt with. The whole jus­tice sys­tem is in a mess be­cause you do not have com­pe­tent peo­ple," Se­u­nath said.He ex­plained that it would be an in­jus­tice to lit­i­gants if mat­ters took years to be­gin.

Pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion Seenath Jairam was not avail­able for com­ment and vice-pres­i­dent Ger­ry Brooks said he would speak on the is­sue to­day.

AG pre­pared to lis­ten

In re­sponse, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Garvin Nicholas, in a text mes­sage re­sponse yes­ter­day, said the amend­ment to the Fi­nance Act came in­to force on Jan­u­ary 27, which raised the lim­it for pet­ty civ­il mat­ters from $15,000 to $50,000.Told that the Law As­so­ci­a­tion was ag­griev­ed that it had not been con­sult­ed on the change in the law, Nicholas said: "You would ap­pre­ci­ate that I came in­to of­fice sub­se­quent to 27th Jan­u­ary."

Nicholas as­sumed of­fice on Feb­ru­ary 3, dur­ing a Cab­i­net reshuf­fle an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.Pressed for com­ment, Nicholas stat­ed: "I can­not ac­count for some­thing I had no hand in. I am, how­ev­er, pre­pared to lis­ten to the Law As­so­ci­a­tion go­ing for­ward. I can say that there are many ini­tia­tives of the Gov­ern­ment that are de­signed to re­duce the bur­den on the mag­is­tra­cy and de­liv­er a bet­ter stan­dard of jus­tice to all."

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan de­clined com­ment, say­ing he was now just a pri­vate cit­i­zen. For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj said he would look at the is­sue and make a state­ment to­day.