Government says it has funds available for the procurement of the furniture and equipment for the Family Court, but that it is awaiting approval of the rules by the Rules Committee of the High Court.
Informed sources said the administration has set a deadline of mid-February 2011 for the Family Court to be operational and has since communicated this to acting Chancellor of the Judiciary Justice Carl Singh, who heads the Rules Committee.
The Rules Committee is said to be currently considering the rules after a formal delivery of the rules was made to the Chancellor last week, a source said.
Human Services Minister Priya Manickchand recently accused the Rules Committee of the High Court of dragging its feet in the start-up of the Family Court, months after construction of the court building was completed.
The court is intended to serve vulnerable families, she said during the 2011 budget debate, while registering the government’s disappointment in the Rules Committee. “We are disappointed, the executive arm, Mr Speaker, that the Rules Committee of the High Court is dithering with these rules… they have done nothing,” Manickchand said, and she called on the committee to get its act together and adopt the rules.
But the Chancellor denied the claims, while saying that even if the rules were to be approved tomorrow, the court would not become functional. “I can sign a Practice Direction as I am authorised at law to do and bring the Family Court into being as a division of the High Court with the stroke of a pen, but this still will not bring the Family Court into being,” he told this newspaper in an interview.
Chancellor Singh said he was aware that a consultant was identified to prepare draft Rules of Court for the Family Court and by chance he managed to obtain a copy of them. However, he noted that the draft rules were never officially sent to his office for consideration of the Rules Committee.
Stabroek News contacted Minister Manickchand in the wake of statements made by the Chancellor and she declined to comment. Manickchand briefly stated that she is looking forward to the establishment of the court.
Attorney-at-law Rafiq Khan was the consultant on the project and several efforts to contact him for a comment have proved futile. Stabroek News placed in excess of ten telephone calls to his office last week and also left messages, but no calls were returned and the messages went unanswered. Subsequently, this newspaper visited his office and was informed through an employee there that he has no intention of speaking to Stabroek News and/or of returning any of our calls on the issue.
However, this newspaper was reliably informed that Khan wrote to Minister Manickchand last October saying that he had passed the rules of the Family Court as well as the rules of the High Court on to the Chancellor. In addition to his consultancy, Khan also sits on the Rules Committee of the High Court.
Chancellor Singh had observed that if the rules are transmitted to him formally for consideration by the Rules Committee, then there would be no delay in the committee considering them. He recalled that some time ago the local press had reported that Cabinet had charged Ministers Manickchand and Robeson Benn with oversight responsibility for the construction of the court building, in addition to making the court operational. The Supreme Court had no involvement in the oversight of the construction of the Family Court building, according to the Chancellor, and he noted that in the course of construction neither of the Ministers kept him or acting Chief Justice Ian Chang updated on the progress of the building. “We were left to rely on the evidence revealed to us by our own eyes to determine progress of the building under construction,” he said.
High on the agenda
This newspaper was told that the government has stressed the urgency of the Family Court to executive judiciary members saying that it has been high on its agenda for many years.
Sources said that the government has used words such as, it would be in the “personal interest of the executive” to have the court operational with as little delay as possible.
The administration, the source said, has envisioned a different layout for the Family Court from the courts currently in existence.
The vision is for a more user-friendly setting which is more appropriate for a large portion of clients, mainly women and children, and a possible configuration to meet this criterion would be a conference-type arrangement.
When the contract was awarded the contracting parties were P D Contracting Company and the then acting Registrar Rashid Mohamed.
Walter Willis, who was appointed supervisor to the project, told Stabroek News last week that the works were completed on October 23, 2010. He said that the approval and payment completion certificate were issued on November 22, 2010 and copied to the acting registrar.
