The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The entire nation knows that I am a disbarred lawyer acting now as a so-called media personality and radio talk show host. This illustrates that when one door is closed in one’s face one must adapt and recalibrate one’s career path. In many ways I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for the experience and knowledge which I would have gained after disbarment. They could not have been learned or imparted from an Ivy League College or university. They came with the licks and knocks of life itself.

Having said that, however, the law and procedure which I would have “forgotten” since my long enforced sojourn in the legal wilderness most of the current members of The Bar will never ever get to know. At the outset allow me to make it quite clear. I have no animosity towards anyone who is connected to the legal profession or the judiciary. My gripe, if any, is towards the archaic judicial and legal systems.

Each year during the opening of the traditional legal year, the eminent jurists and members of the legal profession are to be making a spectacle as they march/parade from the Supreme Court to a prominent church (usually Christ Church Cathedral) dressed in full regalia…inclusive of full bottomed horse hair wigs and garters of old.

Once seated in church, a large percentage of the attendees who I am certain do not know God, much less fear Him, lustily sing hymns; utter some unintelligible prayers; listen to boring recitations by the Learned Chief Justice, de jure; the Attorney General and then the President of the Bar Association. The presiding celebrant will then go on to give a half dead sermon and the crowd will then retire back to the sanctuary of the Supreme Court for a taxpayer’s subsidised lunch. There is nothing inherently wrong with this.

What is wrong and has been wrong for decades is that little or nothing is redressed or addressed after the pomp and ceremony. Our judicial system long before the pandemic was disjointed and in a bad state of disrepair. We do not have a publicly owned Supreme Court complex where all of the supreme courts could/should be located with an adequately stocked and maintained law library.

Some courts are in the Ansbacher House at East and Shirley Streets. Others are still housed in the old Supreme Court Building at Bank Lane. Some are on Bank Lane. Others are on Marlborough Street. If there are any more I do not know where they are. Robing rooms for practitioners are non-existent. Decent bathroom accommodations for practitioners and the public are in a terrible state of repair and maintenance. Who cares?

I have long been a partisan of the current Chief Justice, Sir Brian Moree, QC. Probably long before he even thought about seeking/accepting that post, I was a voice crying in the legal wilderness for his elevation. When he was sworn in there could not have been anyone more proud of that other than perhaps his immediate family, Lady Angela and the boys. I am still proud of Sir Brian and wish him all that is best as he seeks to modernise the judiciary and its public services.

The government of the day controls the budget for the judiciary and the maintenance of court complexes. There have been debates and proposals about modernising the Civil Procedure Rules for at least 20 years and counting. There is now loose talk about ‘forcing’ litigants into enforced and possibly unwanted mediation. This prima facie seems unconstitutional.

Long before the pandemic the court and judicial systems were and remain to this very day in absolute shambles. Litigants are unable to access the filing stations in the Magistrates Courts. One to put it simply would have great difficulty in filing a Magistrate’s Court Summons much less obtaining a timely trial date, if at all. In the Supreme Court one is still able to file a Summons (usually at B$300 a pop) and if you are lucky you may get the original back in a week or two.

To access a file in the Registry of the Supreme Court one (inclusive of lawyers) must submit an electronic request if you have access to a computer and wait for staff members to inform you when to come in. All of this theatrics is damaging the economy and hindering the judicial system big time. Yet, no one appears to care. Why?

Dates for civil hearings; divorces; probates and the list goes on and are sadly capricious, in my considered view. In short the courts are constipated and when the sewerage pipes burst the legendary accumulated shaving cream, for want of a better word, will hit the fan. And so, yet another legal year has been ushered in with great pomp and ceremony.

The legal system is just as bad if not worse than the judiciary. There are scores of complaints before Bar Council which never seem to get addressed. The lawyers who are complained about are able to continue to practice, willy-nilly, until a decision is made by Bar Council. Even if an adverse ruling the disciplined attorney is still in practice until a final ruling by a higher court. This could go on for decades while the public is denied justice and/compensation.

Who cares? Compensation for land compulsorily acquired, years and years ago cannot or will not be disposed of by the AG, de jure and to get a timely mediation hearing is impossible. There was loose talk about digitalising the records of all courts from Sir Lynden’s hey days. Physical files have long been suspected of walking out of the various court registries.

Yes, there is much work that Sir Brian and his political counterparts have to do but, as a man of the system and former practitioner, I will not hold my breath as I would be long deceased and gone before there is light at the end of the judicial and legal systems. To God then, the greatest Jurist, in all things, be the glory.

ORTLAND H BODIE Jr

Nassau,

January 31, 2021.