MONTEGO BAY, St James -Acting Senior Resident Magistrate for St James Vivienne Harris plans to introduce case management to streamline the court process under a new regime aimed at maximising efficiency.

“We don’t have case management in criminal matters, not even in the Supreme Court; usually it is done by legislative framework. However, there’s already some work being done to commence case management in the criminal division of the Supreme Court in January,” she told the Observer West, noting that this did not mean the process couldn’t be tackled in the Resident Magistrate Court Division.

“Many of us have been doing it even without legislation… next year I am going, for example to set aside a day to mention matters rather than have mention and trial matters and then I’ll set the trial matters on the other days.”

The number of cases that are set for each judge will also be managed in the process “so that when we come to court, for example, we will know that we have two matters for trial, and we’re going to proceed at 10:00 am,” she explained.

– Clinton Pickering