THE head of Jamaica’s judiciary, Chief Justice Bryan Sykes is adamant that the staffing and salary concerns of court reporters must be resolved “sooner than later”. However, he has outlined several challenging factors which have fed seething discontent amongst the professionals.

Court reporter/steno writers document, verbatim, everything said during circuit court hearings islandwide and in civil cases, producing a transcript which is essentially the official record of everything that takes place during a court proceeding.

A professional court reporter/steno writer in Jamaica is expected to write at a speed of 225 words per minute, with a 97 per cent level of accuracy. In addition, they prepare notes for judges daily and put together transcripts of cases that are being appealed.

Over the years though, their numbers have dwindled, with several leaving the system for more lucrative offers.

Speaking with the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview following a news report indicating that court reporters assigned to the Supreme Court were again bordering on mutiny, the chief justice, in outlining the peculiarities of the tasks completed by the workers, said “it’s a very demanding skill so one can understand that persons would want to be adequately remunerated for it — so that’s a legitimate observation. But, we have to deal with the realities as they are and try to work out a solution”.

He, in the meantime, pointed out that for the salaries of individuals in the group to move by any significant amount there would need to be a reclassification.

In acknowledging that there is a shortage of individuals with the necessary skill set the chief justice pointed to several factors, including the cost of training, which have proved a deterrent.

“I understand that the cost of [the programme] at the Justice Training Institute (JTI) is $1.5 million. That is a significant barrier to entry and the school has not produced any new court reporters in, if not a decade, certainly close to a decade. So when you have the entry barrier of $1.5 million to be trained and it’s a two-year programme, you have to take into consideration your competitors. That $1.5 million could almost get you a degree; if not completing a degree [then] certainly at least two years of a degree — apart from perhaps law, medicine, and engineering. Most other degrees, $1.5 million can take you at least two years into a three-year degree programme,” Justice Sykes reasoned.

He, however, pointed out that the issue is one which cannot be resolved at his level.

“Where the JTI is, in terms of its location — meaning management and jurisdiction — that’s under the Ministry of Justice; it’s not a blame, it’s a fact. So, it is there and we have no control over that. And even if we had control over that, $1.5 million to come in and do the course, for many persons, is a significant undertaking,” he said.

“At the end of the court reporting training you don’t have a degree; it is a diploma or certificate but it’s certainly not a degree. So those are some of the challenges facing it from a practical side, and then there is the impact of technology,” the chief justice noted.

According to Sykes, whether the remedy involves a combination of technology and court reporters remains to be seen.

“It is a worldwide concern, and so many courts have actually opted for digital audio recording and transcriptionists. That, in and of itself, has its own challenges because it’s a new occupational group. You also have to train the person, getting them properly certified, then you also have to invest in the proper audio equipment… this is going to require a change of culture and behaviour on the part of all the court actors. It means that the courts will now have to be as silent as the grave because you want the microphones to be able to record the speakers clearly and accurately. It also will bring about a change in our attorneys; some attorneys like to move in the bench that they are so with a digital audio recording system the movement is going to be very limited,” he said.

Justice Sykes, in the meantime, noted that resolution will not be in the short term.

“What this requires really to go into digital audio recording is a whole infrastructure. We now have to be talking about not just the recording but storage, retrieval, and transcription in the event a transcript is needed, and so what that requires is rules now to be developed to govern those — and that is being done now,” he told the Observer, adding that a Supreme Court committee has produced a first draft of those rules.

“We have also done a draft of the job description of the digital transcriptionist and so the rules have to address things such as what are the official rules of the court. And so when we are talking about storing things electronically we are talking about backup and all of those things, so it’s quite a task there,” he said.

As for when those changes will manifest, he said, “It has to be sooner rather than later because you have to get into the whole question of creating the posts, and that has to be done in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service because they control the purse strings so they will have to indicate to us how this can be accommodated. And even if you create the posts you still have to identify training programmes and then the question now of the machines and the other equipment they are going to need so it is going to be a fairly significant investment.”

In 2021 the chief justice, in addressing a special media briefing, had said the resource and staffing challenges which have contributed to the late production of transcripts in the high and the parish courts, much to the angst of the Appeal Court, are being remedied.

“We recognise that the production of transcripts are far from ideal; in fact, it’s a terrible situation to be in. So what we did is launch a project in respect of the parish courts and so far we have identified 121 cases in the parish courts where the transcripts are to be produced, and those are being targeted now for delivery to the Court of Appeal,” the chief justice told journalists then.

The transcript is the official record of a trial produced by a court reporter. In parish courts which do not have stenographers, sitting judges take their own notes, called notes of evidence. In respect of transcripts coming from the Supreme Court the chief justice said the methodologies there also need to be retired.

“We are in the process of changing the methodologies; and also, there is the question of old equipment. The court reporters have the stenography machines that they use that are not just old but obsolete. Apparently nobody repairs those things anymore and no parts can be bought for them so they are really fit for the museum. But what is needed now is new stenograph machines,” he said at the time.