Supreme Court Registrar says additional judges played a key role in resolving the bottle-neck of cases

A major contributor to the decrease in backlogged cases at the court was the arrival of three temporary Supreme Court judges. The justices were appointed in January through the Commonwealth Secretariat. Their contracts will be coming to an end at the start of next year and according to Supreme Court Registrar, Trienia Young, discussions to recruit replacements justices are underway. Today, Young explained that the additional manpower greatly assisted in lessening the backlog which she says may never fully be resolved.

Trienia Young, Registrar of Supreme Court: “I’m sure that you appreciate that for criminal matters it is quite different particularly at the Supreme Court than in other courts, than civil matters so there are only a finite number of matters that can be addressed in a given year. We have five criminal judges countrywide and despite the fact that the courts are sitting, despite the fact that matters are being heard there is still crime being committed so we are never going to be able to be at a zero-level reduction. Particularly during COVID even though there were matters being heard jury trials were suspended and jury trials recently started back again I believe in last year, May of last year. In Orange Walk which is one of our smallest courts it has just recently started after – I believe it’s starting now in September so that has caused the backlog to accumulate but the judges are continuously hearing matters with sentencing indicators judges have been able to address what the sentencing  would be to accused persons and accused persons have in fact pled guilty based on those indicators so that as well has in fact reduced the number of matters at the criminal court.”