Mothers seeking child maintenance face repeated adjournments and months of waiting in the magistrates’ courts, MPs told the House of Assembly as proposed reforms were introduced to reduce delays and allow remote hearings.
Parliamentarians Dr Shantal Munro-Knight and Tyra Trotman said the everyday experience of people seeking justice remained a measure of governance, alongside the passage of national laws.
Dr Munro-Knight, Christ Church South MP, highlighted the toll administrative delays take on vulnerable families. Drawing on cases from her constituency clinics, she described young mothers facing multiple adjournments over several months while seeking child maintenance.
She said: “Those young women have to take time off of work. They have to take the children. They have to have somebody to be able to take care of them if they are not in school.
“Then they sit down there for multiple hours. Nobody says anything to them. And sometimes, it is not one adjournment, it is not two, but multiple adjournments to the extent that almost in one case that I have before me… she was still not able to get her matter heard satisfactorily.”
Dr Munro-Knight also addressed delays caused when magistrates are transferred or go on leave. She recounted speaking with a constituent whose case had stalled for years because the presiding magistrate had been moved.
“She is asking me, a non-lawyer, so if that magistrate doesn’t come back, you mean to tell me that I can never get my case heard?”
Barbadians frequently describe the current system as “not fair”, she said.
Tyra Trotman, St Michael Central MP, drew on her experience as a lawyer to describe how inadequate court facilities and outdated procedures cost attorneys and litigants time and money.
She identified the closure of the St Matthias Magistrates’ Court and the reliance on shared facilities at Oistins as major contributors to backlogs in criminal and maintenance cases.
Trotman said: “So many women and sometimes men turn up because they want redress from the magistrate court when it comes to maintenance, financial support for the children that they are raising.
“And sometimes you sit down there for a whole morning, and you find out maybe at 12 o’clock that the magistrate unfortunately is not available and then you have to get an adjournment date and the adjournment date sometimes is two to three months down the road.”
Trotman also highlighted the loss of billable hours while waiting for prison transport or for magistrates to take notes in longhand.
“Time is the only thing that we spend in life that we can never get back,” she said, adding that waiting hours for matters to be called drains productivity. “Oftentimes I’m at the magistrate court, I get there for nine, nine-thirty, and I’m there until one-thirty, two o’clock, waiting on God knows what.”
Both lawmakers supported introducing virtual hearings and digital recording technology to modernise court proceedings.
While acknowledging lawyers’ traditional preference for examining witnesses face-to-face, they argued that technology could eliminate unnecessary travel, reduce transport difficulties and improve efficiency.
Dr Munro-Knight argued that virtual proceedings should become standard practice rather than a temporary emergency measure, as during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have to drag our court system, our legal system into the 21st century, even if it goes screaming and kicking in many respects,” she said, adding that the government must ensure the necessary technology is put in place rather than leaving the changes solely in legislation.
The reforms also address gaps in the law concerning unfinished trials. The proposed changes would allow magistrates to conclude matters even after they have been promoted or moved from their posts, avoiding costly retrials caused by administrative delays.
Dr Munro-Knight maintained that while national security and major criminal legislation demand attention, the dignity afforded to people using the magistrates’ courts, and the timely handling of their cases, remain the ultimate test of a responsive democratic society.
(RR)
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