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The government’s decision to go for a single-judge trial has puzzled some in the legal profession.
Lawyer Andrew Pilgrim, KC, said he remained skeptical whether justice could be fully balanced under the proposed judge-alone trial system.
Pilgrim said the judges’ personal biases could affect the fairness of the trial. He also expressed reservations about the transparency of the judicial appointment process.
“It’s simple. There are good judges and bad judges, there are biased judges and unbiased judges, there are no perfect judges, and that’s why I like the jury system. I guess some people think that a judge-only trial would speed up the process, but we’ll have to wait and see if that’s the case. There are some judges I’d be willing to go to trial before because I feel like I’d be treated fairly, and there are some judges I don’t think I’d be treated fairly,” Pilgrim said.
He added: “I remain unconvinced that there is complete transparency in the way Barbados selects judges….”
The experienced lawyer noted that the rate at which former prosecutors are appointed as judges is disproportionate to the rate at which former defense attorneys are appointed.
“Another thing we have to consider is that many of our judges are former prosecutors and that has to be taken into account as well. The main thing is that some judges will give you an easy trial and some will not and that is what we have to work with now in the new model of our justice system,” he said.
Former Justice Minister Adriel Brathwaite revealed he planned to introduce the system before leaving office in 2018, explaining it was to ease a growing backlog of cases.
He said that in countries where judge-only trials were practised, people had found that legal issues were best decided by judges rather than juries.
“South Africa was one of the jurisdictions I looked at when I was attorney general and we concluded that it would help to address our backlog. We were also concerned that the jury was making decisions that were not in the best interests of the system. However, if there were a judge, you were more likely to get a fairer outcome,” Brathwaite argued.
He continued: “So it’s hard for me to disagree because I think we need to try something different. If you look at murder trials, we’re told that a jury won’t convict him of murder if it means a person could lose their life. They’ll easily convict him of manslaughter because they don’t want that taint to cause someone to lose their life.”
Attorney General Dale Marshall introduced the new bill this week, saying it would significantly improve the system once defendants make their choice.
The Nation team also contacted the President of the Barbados Bar Association, Kaye Williams, who said she would comment on the matter, but had not yet done so by press time.
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