Shortage of criminal defence lawyers still delaying justice

(CNS): While the state of the court buildings, inclement weather, and a shortage of rooms and judges are still impacting the court clearance rates, Chief Justice Margaret Ramsay-Hale said a paucity of defence attorneys slowed down the clear-up rate of cases in the criminal division of the Grand Court last year.

As she delivered her annual address at the opening of the Grand Court on Wednesday, the CJ spoke about some of the challenges this causes, as she explained how the criminal division was only able to clear 79% of the cases before it this year.

The chief justice said that the courts were facing challenges because there were so few criminal defence practitioners relative to the cases before the court. Illustrating this point, a record 513 applications were made to the courts last year for legal aid to finance defence attorneys, the vast majority relating to criminal cases.

There were 139 indictments filed with the Grand Court in 2024, ranging from a bank burglary to murder, including the Cayman Islands’ first people trafficking case.

The long-running case relating to an audacious break-in at the Royal Bank of Canada was also tried last year. The trial took up some three months of Grand Court time and diverted four defence lawyers — a significant number of the defence bar who do regular legal aid work and were unable to help other defendants, fuelling the delay of justice in other cases in both the summary and grand courts.

“The RBC robbery case was in the system for eight years,” the chief justice said. “It took eight years to come to trial and three and a half months to be disposed of. Four of our most senior criminal lawyers… appeared in that matter.

“And what that meant was that for three and a half months, those lawyers were unavailable to assist in any matter in the high court or any matter in the summary court. So instantly, you can see how a backlog or inability to deal with all the cases before the court can arise,” she added.

This has been a long-standing problem for the Cayman Islands. Although there are around 700 practising private attorneys in this jurisdiction, most work in the far more lucrative financial services sector or general civil work. Experienced criminal defence attorneys willing to do legal aid work remain thin on the ground even though the criminal courts are probably now the busiest of all the divisions.

The courts also saw a higher caseload last year than in previous years, which included 23 people who have all been charged individually in the same corruption case and have yet to go to trial. Without that case, the court would have cleared 93% of the indictments it tackled last year — even with the issues hampering the process of justice, such as a number of court closures because of weather warnings in relation to hurricanes that didn’t happen, and the problems with attorneys.

Alongside the insufficient number of defence attorneys, the chief justices spoke in detail about a number of other issues that the court has and will continue to contend with in 2025.

She spoke of the pressing need to provide access to all court facilities for people with disabilities and the plans to move the courts into the digital age. She also accepted and apologised for the mismanagement of the rollout of the new website for the courts, which has since been resolved.

Chief Justice Ramsey Hale also spoke about the need for couples seeking a divorce to utilize the arbitration service to reduce the conflict in these “wars of the roses” for the sake of the children involved. She raised concerns that too many parties are simply refusing to accept the rulings of the court and are seeking to litigate issues that have been resolved over and over again.

Another area of significant concern for the chief justice was that the courts had “no visibility” on how those suffering from mental health problems in the criminal justice system are to be treated. In the report from the chief magistrate, the senior summary court judge had said there was a “lack of long-term direction” regarding those who come into conflict with the law with mental illness.

She said it should be self-evident that these defendants should not be placed in prison. But as they will not be housed in the new mental health facility in East End and with no long-term care solution for them, the prison will be the only place of safety to remand people who should be treated and not punished.

As she wrapped up her address, CJ Ramsey-Hale explained why no progress had been made on her proposal last year to introduce district courts. She said that exploratory missions to the various districts revealed that there are not enough suitable public buildings that could be used as summary court sites.

She suggested to the politicians in attendance that, alongside a much-needed increase in the legal aid budget, they might want to look at acquiring more district buildings for public use.

See the full proceedings on CIGTV’s YouTube channel below:

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