By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterA PLEA IS being made by lawyers and judges for judgments handed down by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court to be posted expeditiously on the Supreme Court web site: www.sc.gov.jm.
The concern is being expressed that judges, particularly Resident Magistrates, could fall into error if they are not aware of the decisions handed down by the Appeal Court and Supreme Court.
And lawyers are concerned also that the judgments are not reaching the Supreme Court Library quickly enough.
"It takes a good while to reach the library and I would say weeks at times," says attorney-at-law Carl Thomas.
The Gleaner made a request in the Supreme Court Library in July to see a copy of the judgment in the case of Colleen Burrell v. The Cornwall Regional Hospital Board of Management and the Attorney General, which was handed down in the Supreme Court on July 26 this year. Despite repeated requests, The judgment was made available to The Gleaner only on August 19.
Nicole Simmons, acting Registrar, told The Gleaner that Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe had given specific instructions for the judgments to be sent to the web master quickly so they can be posted on the web site.
The Court of Appeal has handed down 31 judgments this year and the Supreme Court has handed down more than 50.
The Supreme Court Registry went hi-tech in January 1999 with the computerisation of all new cases filed in the common law section.
On February 7, 2000, the Supreme Court web site advised: "... Our aim for this year is to have the judgments up within 48 hours of them being completed. By the end of the year they will be up within 24 hours."
Attorneys-at-law Patrick Bailey and Bert Samuels share the view that it is of the "utmost importance" to have the judgments posted on the web site. They argue that everyone, including lawyers and litigants in Jamaica and abroad, should have access to the judgments.
Another lawyer complained that the weekly court lists for the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal are not provided on the web site in a timely fashion even though the hard copy is available from Thursday afternoon at the Supreme Court Registry. So on a Monday when new cases are up for hearing, the web site was still posting lists that are out of date.
He said that a lawyer who was out of town and could not go to the Supreme Court Registry should be able to access the up-to-date lists by way of the Supreme Court web site.
Some Resident Magistrates and lawyers who were contacted yesterday said that frequently, they were not aware that judgments were handed down until they read about them in The Gleaner.
A judge said that an advantage of having the judgments on the web site, and quickly, was that if a judge made a ruling that was not in conformity with the law then other judges could point out the error to that judge. The judge said that the Court of Appeal judgments were properly edited but that some Supreme Court judgments needed more careful editing before being posted on the web site because they had too many spelling errors.
Fiona Feare-Gregory, Deputy Registrar of the Supreme Court, explained recently that there was a certain format in which the judgments must be presented for them to go on the web site. She said the judgments were not being presented in that way and therefore could not be accommodated on the web site because of the way they were "typed up." She said they were now in the process of "streamlining" the system and very soon the judgments would be on the web site.
