JAIL, COURT LINK UPBy Andre Bagoo Saturday, November 7 2009
CHIEF JUSTICE Ivor Archie and Attorney General John Jeremie will hold a special meeting next Wednesday at the Scarborough Magistrates’ Court in Tobago where they will witness the testing of new technology to be introduced to allow for video links between prisons and courtrooms throughout the country.
Newsday understands the Chief Justice has invited Jeremie to attend a pilot session of a video link programme which will see persons incarcerated at the Scarborough Prison attend court via video link.
At the prison on Bacolet Street, the prisoners will be taken to a special room set-up with a video camera and a large-screen monitor. At the magistrates’ court, which is also on Bacolet Street but a few blocks away, there will be similar equipment inside of a specially prepared courtroom where judicial officers will preside. A live video link will thereby allow conferencing between the two locations, thus, enabling prisoners to virtually attend court while remaining within the precincts of prison.
The video link project is expected to be a nationwide initiative for implementation throughout selected courts in Trinidad and Tobago.
Already, a similar scheme has been successfully tested between the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court on St Vincent Street and the Port-of-Spain Gaol which is located a few blocks away on Frederick Street.
Two courtrooms of the Port-of-Spain courthouse, the Fourth (A) Court, which deals with drug trafficking offences, and the Fourth (B) Court, which deals with firearms offences, have been equipped with large screen AOC monitors. According to administrative sources, the monitors were installed in the first quarter of 2009 and a link between each courtroom and a room in the prison was successfully tested.
The plans to introduce video links between courts and prisons come at a sensitive time for court authorities and the police in the wake of the killing of murder accused Peter Garcia on the compound of the Rio Claro Magistrates’ Court on October 19 while he was being transported from court by an unarmed police escort.
While this week, the police’s Court and Process Branch introduced a special Court and Process Branch Task Force which will beef-up security and surveillance around courts, plans to introduce video links will no doubt be regarded as useful for cases involving high-risk prisoners who may be better protected if they do not have to be transported to court.
Already, video conferencing technology is used in the civil courts, with the Port-of-Spain and San Fernando High Courts using such technology for the hearing of case management conferences and, on some occasions, the handing down of judgments. For instance, on July 27, 2007, Justice Charmaine Pemberton delivered a judgment against Basdeo Panday on the issue of whether he had vacated his Couva North seat to lawyers gathered at the Port-of-Spain High Court while she was presiding in the Tobago High Court.
There have also been cases of persons in protective custody testifying in cases via video link, such as when, on March 20, 2008, the State’s star witness in the Vindra Naipaul-Coolman murder inquiry testified in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Magistrates’ Court via a link from the Hall of Justice.
The introduction of video link technology between prison and court is also regarded by some as a possible solution to the problem of the over-clogging of the magistrates’ courts where accused persons who are on remand are frequently brought to prison via an elaborate transport system. Frequently, prisoners are brought to court by the hundreds in vans guarded by armed private officers. Because of the sheer number of cases called at the magistrates’ court each day, this results in an over-crowding of cells within courthouses.
Prisoners transported to court in vans with cramped, hot cells, also very often end up spending a few minutes, if that much, in front of a magistrate as cases are frequently adjourned because of scheduling difficulties with lawyers, the heavy workload of magistrates, the unavailability of police officers to attend court, the absence of witnesses, a lack of forensic exhibits or the failure of police to procure records of past criminal histories of accused persons in time for the court date.
Additionally, in the case of the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court and the Port-of-Spain Gaol, tremendous resources are expended transporting prisoners between both compounds daily, despite the fact that they are a few blocks away from each other.
Next Wednesday’s meeting between Archie and Jeremie in Tobago also comes in the wake of months of tensions between the State and the Judiciary over a lack of adequate funding.
Additionally, Archie has been a vocal critic of the Working Document on Constitutional Reform which has been prepared by a round-table headed by Prime Minister Patrick Manning.
