Top officials of the executive and the judiciary met on Wednesday afternoon to craft a strategy to reduce the huge backlog of cases that have bogged down the court system here for years and created overcrowding in the prison system. The meeting on Wednesday comes days after a deadly riot broke out at the Georgetown Prison resulting in deaths of 17 prisoners. Surviving inmates have mainly blamed the riot on poor conditions at the prison including delays in their trials and long periods of remand. While information was not forthcoming about the measures discussed by the representatives of both the executive and the judiciary, Chancellor of the Judiciary Carl Singh told reporters after the approximately two hour meeting held at the Court of Appeal that several measures have been identified and are being considered for magistrates with respect to dealing with overcrowding in prisons.
“The meeting largely focused on the work of the courts and how it impacts on the situation in the prison. What we did was to identify measures by which the judiciary’s work, particularly at the magistracy level can impact in a way that brings about some relief particularly the problem of overcrowding in the prisons,” Justice Singh stated.
The Chancellor said too that over the next fortnight the plans will be “fleshed out”. “We are going to flesh out those plans in the next fortnight or so,” he said. Asked to identify a few of the measures discussed the Chancellor would only say, “It is a bit precipitate.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo who headed the team of representatives from the executive said the discussions were “successful” and noted that follow up meetings will be held with the relevant persons from the judiciary. “This meeting has shown a resolve to confront the issues affecting the prison system and the justice system and we will issue a full release on this meeting subsequently,” the Prime Minister stated.
He told reporters that ‘follow-up’ meetings will be held as information requested becomes available. “We are going to have follow ups after being able to provide [and] exchange information and an inventory on how many people are affected and how the judiciary can in fact help, the magistracy. There are some preliminary mechanisms that have to be put in place to allow us to move forward,” he said.
The judiciary the Prime Minster said is fully supportive of the initiative. “The judiciary is on board; the chancellor is very committed to helping and paving the way to dealing with some of the issues.” Without divulging much details the Prime Minister said Wednesday’s meeting was set up to deal with the issue of overcrowding in the prisons and to be able to come to an agreement with the judiciary on a number of initiative that will be proposed by the judiciary aimed at easing the overcrowding.
The proposals will also address dealing with persons on remand while trying to accelerate trials. “It was a wide ranging discussion all aimed at trying to get trials speedily and trying to clear the congestion in the prison,” Nagamootoo stated. President David Granger had instructed that a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) be held into the death of the seventeen inmates of the Capital ‘A’ Division of the Camp Street jail. That Commission as part of its Terms of Reference is currently investigating, and examining the causes, circumstances and conditions that led to the disturbances at the Georgetown Prison on the morning of March 3 which resulted in the death of the 17 inmates along with the subsequent disturbances at the said location. The Commission is also tasked with inquiring into the nature of all injuries sustained by the prisoners during the disturbances; determine whether the conduct of the staff of the Guyana Prisons Service who were on duty at the time of the incidents was in conformity with the Standard Operating Procedures of the Guyana Prison Service; determine whether the deaths of the 17 prisoners was as a result of negligence, abandonment of duty, disregard of instructions, inaction of the Prison Officers who were on duty on the night of the March 2 and morning of March 3.
The Commission is expected to make “comprehensive recommendations” to ensure the safety of the prisons. This will include the examination of the physical infrastructure of the prison, the existing security arrangements in respect to custody, management and control of prisoners, the appropriate treatment of prisoners in compliance with legal and other requirements and the prevention of a recurrence of such disturbances. Also present at the meeting were Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan; Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams and Minister of State, Joseph Harmon. Representing the judiciary were Chief Justice, Yonette Cummings-Edwards, Chief Magistrate, Ann Mc Lennan and Director of Public Prosecutions, Shalimar Ali-Hack.