BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – A Needs Assessment of the Administration of Justice in nine Caribbean Countries (NAR) has found that efficient access to justice is undermined across the Caribbean region by delays within several critical stages of the criminal justice process, resulting in significant backlogs of cases.
“The identified backlogs are occasioned by pervasive human and technological resource and capacity constraints, which, in turn, contribute to massive bottlenecks in the work of the investigators, public prosecutors, and courts,” said Juliet Solomon, the Regional Rule of Law, Security and Human Rights Specialist with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Addressing the seventh Biennial Law Conference of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Academy for Law (CAL), Solomon said in 2012, the UNDP published the Caribbean Human Development Report entitled “Human Development and the Shift to Better Citizen Security.”
She said one of the critical findings of the publication was the need for more data. “It was clear that the judicial system and access to justice was a concern, but how to measure, assess, and come up with solutions without data? “
To address this situation, in 2019-2020, UNDP undertook an NAR in nine Caribbean countries, which she did not name but was a multi-country effort involving.
Consultations and detailed discussions with over 100 stakeholders to identify the issues causing backlogs in the criminal justice system and prioritize interventions.
Solomon said that a five-pronged approach guided the NAR that included a complete analysis of country-level documents, regional reports, academic research, and broad consultations with judicial stakeholders in each jurisdiction.
She told the conference that the backlogs directly contribute to the “worryingly high levels of prisoners on remand for extended periods and serve to increase overall incarceration rates in the region, which are already among the highest globally.”
Solomon said that through the NAR, it was possible to identify the main challenges for a people-centered approach to justice that leaves no one behind.
“The issue is not just access to justice (or) how easy is it to access justice services? How are justice services being delivered? How can that delivery be improved?) it is also the issue of the quality of justice being paid. How easy is it to access justice services? How are justice services being provided? How can that delivery be improved? “
She said it is worth emphasizing that many of the issues around prolonged pre-trial detention, for example, can represent infringement upon the human rights of citizens.
“The NAR represented a seminal document, containing both up-to-date data on the specifics of the administration of justice and detailed recommendations from stakeholders across the judicial system from the judiciary, police, prisons, DPPs, forensic agencies, and more.”
She said this allowed UNDP to work with the European Union to design a project that takes a “whole of system approach” to address the issues which, through the NAR, were identified as one of the most pressing: reducing backlogs and bottlenecks within the criminal justice system.
The project was launched on Tuesday and will cover 8 Eastern and Southern Caribbean countries. It has three anticipated outcomes: technology and infrastructure systems enhanced, empowered stakeholders, enhanced capacities, and improved processes, procedures, and coordination.
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