Chief Justice Bryan Sykes is advocating a rethink and redesign of the island’s court buildings, pointing to the fact that accused individuals “rub shoulders” with all parties, including witnesses, as one reason for “change”.

“We shouldn’t have a situation where defendants, witnesses, lawyers are all using the same space, as happens in the Supreme Court. When persons are being brought from the cells up into the courtrooms [they are] rubbing shoulders with the lawyers, witnesses, jurors, so we have to change all of that. That is why we need modern court buildings to deal with all of those types of issues,” Justice Sykes said at the third staging of ‘A Conversation with the Judiciary’ at Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston last Friday.

That observation by the chief justice is one which has come to the fore over the years. Following the release of one of the accused in the murder of financial analyst Jamie Lue in Christmas 2005, a relative of Lue, in a social media post, had said, “There is no proper justice in Jamaica for the victim and their families and not to mention the poor safety precautions. How can the alleged murderer and witness be allowed to enter the court house together and sit in the same waiting area?”

On Friday, the chief justice made the point while elaborating on ways in which technology will be used in court processes to improve service delivery.

He said the infrastructural considerations fed into the question of the role of the Ministry of Justice as it relates to the judiciary.

“From my perspective, two of the primary roles of the Ministry of Justice is to provide adequate infrastructure for the court staff and those who use the court for court purposes,” the chief justice said.

According to Justice Sykes, the issue of the court being fit for the purpose of those who use it also brought into focus its use by individuals who have no business with the entity.

For years, Justice Square in downtown Kingston — which is home to the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions — has been refuge for dozens of homeless individuals, some of whom are mentally challenged and roam at will in different stages of undress.

Only last week this reporter witnessed a male member of that cohort dropping his pants and turning his naked buttocks outwards in full view of people traversing the sidewalks who were headed in his direction.

“If you go down to the Supreme Court you will see a number of our citizens who make excellent use of the court building but not for the purposes of litigation. They are usually gathered along the Barry Street side of the court, and they gather there late in the evenings from about six, seven o’clock, and they enjoy the surroundings right up until the following morning,” the chief justice said delicately.

“That’s not what we really have in mind when we talk about using the court and the infrastructure, so something will have to be arrived at in dealing with those of our citizens who are there, because they pose a challenge to attorneys and court staff when they want to come into the court building,” he stated further.

According to the chief justice, who is the administrative head of the judiciary, “It’s really talking about providing adequate infrastructure to house all the occupational groups”.

“In the past, our courtroom designs were largely based upon the idea that the court is just for the staff and for the judge, but the truth is, a court is also a workspace for attorneys, police officers and a lot of other persons spend significant hours of the day within the courts, so provisions have to be made for that. So, we are talking about rethinking and redesigning our court buildings,” he said.