MONTEGO BAY, St James

The run-down family court on Kerr Crescent in Montego Bay is to be relocated, most likely to new premises on Dome Street as the authorities move to end the nightmare currently being experienced by its users.

“We have been lobbying for this move for quite some time as the current building is virtually inaccessible to geriatric clients and extremely inconvenient in that it offers no privacy to those who have to use it.

File storage is also a big problem there,” President of the Cornwall Bar Association Clayton Morgan, told the Observer West.

The move is to be made pending the construction of a judicial centre within the next two years to house all of the Resident Magistrate’s Courts for St James and the Regional Gun Courts and Family Courts.

Plans to establish a branch of the Supreme Court at the new judicial centre are also afoot, the Observer West has learnt.

To this end, Chief Justice Zailia McCalla and a judicial party comprising several Resident Magistrates, Morgan and other members of the Cornwall Bar, toured several potential sites in Montego Bay last Friday.

In addition to the former Billy Craig Insurance Building on Dome Street which is being considered to house the new family court for the time being, the party visited a five-acre site behind the Westgate Shopping Centre owned by businessman Mark Kerr-Jarrett’s Barnett Estates Limited.

In the meantime the move is being welcomed, albeit with some scepticism, by attorneys and clients alike.

“The family court is cramped, overcrowded and uncomfortable and the many women who use it deserve better.

Yes, staff tries hard to facilitate their needs, but what is needed is a decent place so I’m happy about that,” said defence attorney Roy Fairclough.

He was sceptical however about the news concerning the setting up of a branch of the Supreme Court in the second city.

“As to that…the Cornwall Bar Association has been lobbying for a branch of the Supreme Court to be established here for years and years. First under Chief Justice Zacca we were told that we couldn’t get it unless we had a library. We got the library, but it didn’t happen.

Then Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe came up with an idea of online filing, but it hasn’t happened yet, although he did make some improvements as far as facilitating the use of an address for service outside of the three-mile radius was concerned. Then came the concession, consequent on the lobbying efforts of attorneys Ronald and Dawn Paris to facilitate the hearing of undefended divorce petitions by a judge sitting in circuit where time allowed for it and that, as far as I know, has been working well,” he said.