(Jamaica Observer) The island’s 44 resident magistrates stayed off the job on Thursday in a rare protest against working conditions, including security, and remuneration. The strike kept clerks of court across the island busy rescheduling cases and extending bail for scores of people who had turned up to have their cases dealt with.
“The judges are upset and frustrated that long-standing concerns by the justice ministry have not been addressed,” one magistrate told the Observer on condition of anonymity.
“The issues include personal security, which is not provided for resident magistrates; improvements in their compensation package to include higher salaries; faster payment of allowances like travelling and subsistence, some of which are between four and six months in arrears; a greater scope for upward mobility; and recognition of RMs as members of the judiciary, rather than as civil servants.”
According to the magistrate, there was no plan to have the sick-out coincide with Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne’s appearance on Thursday at the Commission of Enquiry into the Government’s handling of the United States’ extradition request for former Tivoli Gardens don Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.
Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Robert Rainford, said the RMs would have returned to work yesterday. He told the Observer that the magistrates were on strike for a number of reasons relating to sensitive issues, which he did not wish to speak about.
However, he said that the finance ministry and the justice ministry were dealing with the issues.
The Association of Resident Magistrates (ARM), in a recent report carried in the media, expressed dissatisfaction at the way in which the Government was treating its members. The issue of security was one of their main concerns as it relates to them being assigned a personal escort and the posting of district constables at courthouses to boost security that is already provided by the police.
The ARM cited a recent incident of an accused man, who had been fined in the night court by a judge, going to the judge’s home the following day and making a loud noise at her gate with his car horn.
On Thursday, the magistrate who spoke to the Observer said that the executive of the ARM had brought that matter to the attention of the minister of justice. However, their concerns about personal security were registered to the minister and the ministry long before the incident occurred.
