Oropouche West MP Vidia Gayadeen-Gopeesingh says the Government should consider building a Remand Yard court to assist with the backlog of cases in the judiciary.
During the budget debate in Parliament on Friday, Gayadeen-Gopeesingh made the suggestion as she criticised the government’s $46 million cut to the Judiciary.
“Every year, we hear of the discomfort when judges speak at the opening of the new law term.
“What we have seen in the criminal justice system is excess of 100,000 cases in the magistrates’ court and about 10,000 cases in the High Court,” Gayadeen-Gopeesingh said.
She said it would take at least 20 years to clear the backlog of cases.
“We have six criminal courts in Port-of-Spain and three in San Fernando. Only one trial can take place in each court at a time and a trial that takes three to four months, now takes one or two years.”
She said this was because of various inefficiencies in the Judiciary.
“To improve the efficiency of the judicial system, we have Remand Yard where we house lots of prisoners and if we were to build a Remand Yard court where the matters can be tried and you can have video conferencing, you can save the cost which the AG said costs the state $25,000 per month to keep a prisoner.”
She said a Remand Yard court would ensure that matters could be tried there and time would be saved from transporting prisoners from Remand Yard to Couva, San Fernando or Chaguanas.