The magistrates’ courts are set for a major digital upgrade, as the judiciary on Monday launched a new case management system designed to tackle decades of inefficiency and bring long-awaited reform to the justice system.
At the official launch of the Judicial Management Information System for the magistrates’ courts at District ‘D’ Magistrates’ Court, Chief Justice Leslie Haynes noted that while the legal profession has evolved significantly during his 45-year career, the magistrates’ courts have largely remained stuck in the past.
He said: “In those 45 years, I’ve seen the practice of law evolve with various emerging practice areas; even seen newer ways of doing business, and many a law office has shifted from paper to the digital platform.
“What I’ve not seen is any major development to the operations of the magistrates’ courts in this island. The operation of the magistrates’ courts remains very much as if they were still back in the 1970s, 60s and 50s. We are about to change that.”
The JIMS Barbados platform is the national implementation of the regional Court Case Management System, a project developed in partnership with the judiciary and the National Centre for State Courts, an independent, non-profit in the United States, under the Caribbean Anti-Crime Programme of the US State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). Barbados is the third country in the region to implement the INL-supported system, following Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.
The system is being rolled out in phases, starting with the Family Division—specifically cases involving maintenance and domestic disputes—before expanding to criminal, traffic and civil cases.
Haynes acknowledged that change would not come overnight due to infrastructure and resource limitations, but maintained that JIMS represents a critical first step in streamlining the judiciary’s operations. A training programme is also being developed, starting with District D and eventually expanding to other districts, with trained legal assistants helping to bring other courts on board.
One of the most impactful changes will be in the handling of maintenance payments. The chief justice explained that the new digital platform would eliminate the chaos often experienced by mothers waiting weeks for answers regarding their maintenance funds.
“We’ve had chaos for many years in the magistrates’ courts dealing with maintenance payments and mothers collecting maintenance payments. Sometimes mothers come to court [asking] ‘where’s the money?’, and the legal assistant tells them they can’t get it now, come back in six weeks’ time,” he explained. “We have to do an audit, we have to reconcile the accounts. With the family platform, we will be able to introduce what will happen at Welfare, where mothers will get cards, the money is paid in the [court], the money goes to the consolidated fund, the money then goes to the bank, the bank uploads the money on the cards. That will keep everything running smoothly and efficiently.”
The new platform also introduces a higher level of security and accountability, according to Bradley Benskin, the project’s communications, marketing and brand manager.
Benskin said: “This system is secure in that there are built-in fail-safes across the board. You, the person coming to file when we are ready for you to file, will be given a unique identifier. Username and password unique to you should not be shared with anyone else because any transaction that happens is traceable back to you, the user. The magistrate can see in real-time, so the magistrate can be able to manage the cases that they have. So if, for example, an attorney was in a matter and the attorney said they were at District ‘D’ and they had to come to District ‘F’, and they called and say they were at District ‘D’, the magistrate [only] has to say all right, let’s call up this attorney by name, and you can see every matter that they’re in and whether or not they really are at District ‘D’ or not.
“So there’s a bit of accountability built into this new programme where you are, let’s say, kept honest.”
(SB)
The post Digital overhaul promises to modernise magistrates’ courts – CJ appeared first on Barbados Today.
