MS, I wish to table the 2017 Annual Statistical Reports for the Supreme Court and the Parish Courts in this Honourable House.
This is significant, MS, it is the first time Reports of the activities in the Courts are being tabled in the form of a statistical Report in the House.
In May 2016, the Ministry of Justice engaged Dr. Denarto Dennis, a senior Statistician, with the full support of the former Chief Justice Mrs. Zaila McCalla; on a full time basis at the Supreme Court to develop and expand a data capture process in the Courts across the Island.
The work of the Statistician is being funded and made possible by the Justice Undertakings for Social Transformation (JUST) Programme, and the preliminary work on the data capture system was done by the Department of Justice Canada.
This then enabled the Statistician to immediately modify and implement the work of analyzing and reporting his statistical findings.
Further, the Statistical Personnel of the Ministry of Justice were reassigned to the Supreme Court to provide support to Dr. Dennis.
Very soon, after Dr. Dennis was engaged, A Report on the Court of Appeal was prepared and published.
MS, a pilot project was thereafter launched in the Parish Courts to capture information on criminal matters and then extended to all other criminal courts by the end of 2016, then to the Civil and Family Courts.
By the end of 2017, Quarterly reports were being prepared on the treatment and disposition of matters in the Supreme Court. It is important that all Stakeholders in the Justice System read these Reports and familiarise themselves with the concerns and challenges in the disposal of cases.
Information is now available on, among other things:
1. the number of cases in the Court;
2. the disposal rates;
3. disaggregation of the types of matters in the courts;
4. scheduling of the various matters;
5. distribution of cases among the courts;
6. rates for trial readiness and completion;
7. performance rates;
8. case load; and
9. the length of time it takes for matters to be completed in the various Courts.