KINGSTON, Jamaica — Chief Justice, Bryan Sykes has announced plans to develop training programmes for officers making up the leadership core of the Judiciary of Jamaica under its recently launched Strategic Business Plan for 2024 to 2028.

Projected to roll out by 2025, the training programmes will be facilitated by the Court Administration Division (CAD) along with other sector stakeholders, targeting judges, registrars, board administrators and supervisors, to develop their skills and competences in managing the country’s courts.

Justice Sykes was addressing the official launch of the strategic plan on Wednesday, April 10 at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in St Andrew.

He said the CAD will also see structural changes to better serve internal stakeholders.

“The CAD was established to provide corporate services to the courts. In addition to moving into a new building in a few weeks in New Kingston, you will begin to see the consequence of that in terms of the staffing structure. We will have more persons… to address the needs of the courts and the judges in a timely way, and so that is something that will be emphasised in the new strategic planning period,” he pointed out.

In a post-ceremony interview, Sykes said the leadership of the courts will also benefit from training opportunities available through the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) and other entities to ensure they are properly equipped to carry out their mandate.

“What we’re seeking to do is to find out what courses they have that we can benefit from. Because you know, the military, they’ve spent a lot of time and effort on training, and leadership in one sense is generic, but you tailor it to the specific needs of the organisation,” he said.

Justice Sykes noted that one area of interest is building the strategic thinking capabilities of judges and other officers of the courts to be better able to give input on matters of national importance.

“We have to get our judiciary and our [officers] thinking in those terms so when we hear, for example, Portmore is to become the 15th parish, as a judiciary, we have to think what that means. What is the likely population? What legal services are they likely to need? What size courts should be there? What types of cases are expected to be there and so on, to begin to develop a plan so that if and when that becomes a reality, while the process is going on, we have our say as well,” Justice Sykes said.

—JIS