THE Ministry of Legal Affairs and the Attorney General’s Chambers recently hosted a one-day sensitisation training on the ‘new civil procedure rules’, which saw participation of state lawyers and some judges.The Government Information Agency (GINA) reported Legal Affairs Minister Basil Williams as saying: “It is imperative that we have state lawyers being introduced to the rules.”

The Legal Affairs Minister had, in November, laid in the National Assembly the New Civil Procedure Rules for the Supreme Court on behalf of the Rules Committee. These new rules will replace the existing rules, and are designed to ensure parties are heard and not unjustly prejudiced, Minister Williams said.

“The court must be actively involved, and arrive and try to get to justice; so a lot of the technicalities that would have been applied and prevent persons from actually having a hearing in court, all those things will be removed under the new rules,” Minister Williams explained.

The legal session was conducted by Consultant Anthony Ross, QC, and Justice Courtney Abel from the Belize High Court. Ross encouraged the state practitioners to “become involved as part of the process”.

“Government lawyers have a special interest; every time there is a (Constitutional) issue, you going to be involved… As far as adjournment is concerned, it’s costing your department money; as far as experts are concerned, you’ve got to understand that expert evidence is an exception to the rule…and you must have something on which you’re going to stand,” Ross said in opening remarks.

Justice Abel led interactive exchanges on case management and pre-trial law.

Also present at the training session were top judicial officers from Caribbean jurisdictions, including the President of the Caribbean Court of Justice, Sir Dennis Byron. The delegation arrived in Guyana on Friday.

This session is the beginning of a series of training sessions that will continue into the new year, Minister Williams pointed out. “We hope that in the new training we have, both state and lawyers at the private bar will be involved in it.”

The new Civil Procedure Rules have been brought in line with similar rules in the Caribbean. The rules and legal forms span 187 pages, contain procedures for the settlement of civil matters, and make payments both in and out of court. The rules will also reduce clogging of courts by matters that could be settled.