The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

THREE newly appointed justices for the Supreme Court took their oaths yesterday.

Chief Justice Brian Moree said he hoped these appointments will help to tackle the backlog of cases in the judicial system.

Juanita Denise Lewis-Johnson, Jeanine Weech-Gomez, and Andrew D Forbes were sworn in yesterday. Justice Forbes and Justice Weech-Gomez were assigned to the criminal division; Justice Forbes in Freeport and Justice Weech-Gomez in New Providence. Justice Lewis-Johnson will be assigned to the family and civil divisions in Nassau.

The trio are among the five appointments that were announced by the Judicial and Legal Services Commission to be appointed to the Supreme Court. The other two, Neil Brathwaite and Camille Darville-Gomez, are to be effective as justices on June 14 and August 3 respectively.

Once the five justices have been sworn in, that will take the number up to 20 judges – two in Freeport and 18 in New Providence.

A statement from the commission last week noted a reduction of justices caused in part by the retirement of two judges, the elevation of two judges to the Court of Appeal, and another judge on pre-retirement leave earlier this year.

“Meanwhile, the volume of the work of the Supreme Court has continued to increase during that period of time,” the statement noted.

Speaking to reporters after the swearing-in ceremonies, the Chief Justice said that over the last 12 to 24 months there have been a number of retirements and elevations in that court thus “we really were shorthanded.”

He gave an estimation on the length of the backlog.

“The empirical data is actually difficult to get because there is no statistical unit in the Supreme Court... On the criminal side, the backlog is probably somewhere between 12 to 18 months. Now exceptionally, there may be some cases that maybe went a little longer than that waiting for trial...”

“On the civil side, on the commercial side and the family side, the backlog is running somewhere between nine and 18 months. The family division actually is probably a little shorter. Civil and commercial probably is 18 months. Family is somewhere between nine to 12 months.”

He also noted the importance of these new appointments.

“So these appointments are going to provide the judiciary with much needed additional resources in order to deal with our cases. There has been a backlog of cases and that, of course, was compounded by the public emergency and so we now have a larger backlog we had to deal with in addition to all of the new cases which are coming into the system literally every month. So this is a very important development for us.”

Justice Forbes noted the length the country’s second city has gone on without trials.

“I’m hoping that given that there hasn’t been any trials taking place for at least the last six months and I’ll be able to hit the ground running cause I’ve done it before and a little energetic and hopeful that I’ll be able to bring some of those matters that have been languishing for the last six months up to due date…” he told the media.

This is his second appointment to Grand Bahama. The first was in 2008 for five years.

The commission also highlighted the Magistrate’s Court has also been affected by recent developments, including the retirement of two magistrates in 2020 and the resignation of a New Providence magistrate earlier this year. The elevation of former Deputy Chief Magistrate Forbes and former Coroner/Magistrate Weech-Gomez to the Supreme Court will further exacerbate these issues. The JLSC has advised the governor general of appointments for this court.

But the Coroner’s Court has had challenges as well. Chief Justice Moree explained that Hurricane Dorian really resulted in a lot of additional work for the Coroner’s Court and there was a backlog developing after the hurricane. In fact, Justice Weech-Gomez recently concluded the first part of an inquest into the presumed deaths of people reported missing during the deadly 2019 storm.

The Chief Justice explained that there will be an advertisement for an appointment in the Coroner’s Court.

“There are a number of deputy coroners that we have now – several in New Providence and one in Grand Bahama — and so we’re going to be deploying all of the deputy coroners together with a new appointment who will be appointed the coroner. That process should start within the next several weeks. We’ll advertise for the post and then the Judiciary and Legal Services Commission will consider the application and advise His Excellency, the Governor General who to appoint.”