Government is soon to bring legislation to the National Assembly to increase the number of sitting High Court judges from 12 to 20, given the increase in cases since the passage of the original Act over five decades ago.
This announcement was made on Thursday in the National Assembly by Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall during the debate on the passage of the Deeds Registry (Amendment) Bill.
“The High Court Act stipulates that there be 12 judges in the High Court. But that Act is in excess of 50 years old,” he said.
He stated that while the number stipulated in the Act was adequate for the time it was passed, the situation has changed and the workload in the High Court has increased in excess of 100 percent. “Clearly such a position begs review,” he said.
“It is in that context that very shortly an amendment will be tabled to increase the number from 12 to 20,” he said.
Nandlall said that while the Government may not be able to fill all of the vacancies when the complement increases to 20, at least the legal framework for such an increase would have been put in place.
Asked whether a full complement of judges according to the extant law is in place, Nandlall said yes, adding that this is the first time in about 25 years that all 12 positions are filled.
“We have more specialised courts now…we have family court, commercial court and we need more judges to man these specialised courts,” he said.
Nandlall said that while the appointment of judges is a matter for the Judicial Service Commission, it is the Executive’s responsibility to make the necessary resources available to it to ensure that the citizenry has an efficient and effective system of justice.
“Significantly, the Execu-tive sees a connection between a functioning judiciary and economic growth,” he said. “Investors will be less willing to invest in a country where there is no satisfactory mechanism for resolving disputes when these arise.
It is also against this background that the Executive is making transformational reform in institutions that are adjunct to the justice system such as the Deeds Registry and Commercial Registry,” the Attorney General said.
