Family court long overdue – Magistrate

Magistrate Gloria Augustus has sounded a called for the implementation of a family court to more effectively deal with legal matters relating to families.

Augustus, who spoke to Dominica News Online , said that this special family court, governed under the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court(ECSC), would allow for much more attention to be placed on troubled youths and families hence save time and even change lives.

The magistrate recently traveled to St Lucia via the ECSC court to look at the operations of the family court there.

“Dominica has been planning to have a family court for several years now. There have been attempts at doing the legislation for family court. I am aware of that because I was part of that process, but this has not come through as yet,” she stated.

“Recently, there was what you call the OECS Law Reform Project for family and domestic violence matters and under that reform project part of the whole thing was that the eastern Caribbean would have family courts, and also there’ll be a lot of family laws reformed. This hasn’t happened as yet in Dominica,” Augustus stated.

She is concerned about the large variety of complicated  family problems that are being dealt with by local magistrate’s with limited personnel.

“I have seen the shortcomings of that court because really we need a family court, particularly for juvenile matters. I’m really supposed to sit with two other persons in a sort of a panel because some of these matters are not just about law,” she stated.

“You also have to look into other things that might probably have caused the matter or might cause whatever option that you’re taking to deal with the matter, not to be effective, and I know family matters are complicated matters,” the magistrate said.

The magistrate is convinced that this new court system could change lives.

“I am sure that we would change some lives and I am sure that we would give better service to a lot of people who have come into the system. Sometimes there are certain services that you have to pay for but through the court if these services are available then they (families) are able to get that because not everybody can pay,” she stated.

She explained that time limitation is a crippling factor in dealing with family issues in Dominica.

“For matters to do with maintenance, custody and so on, the length of time sometimes that you might need to deal with a matter or the different avenues that you might need to deal with…. It is not really possible when we have one day – a Friday – for maintenance court, and in that day, domestic violence matters can come or sometimes there might be other urgent matters… It’s really not sufficient,” she stated.

Augustus said that fully fledged family court matters would address this matter since it would be open all week with staff dedicated to all the different aspects of family troubles.

She explained the proposed court system.

“What you have in a family court, even the setting is different in that people don’t come and stand in a box…. Their magistrate is at a certain position at the table and they sit at the table and discuss. Particularly in my experience in St. Lucia: they had one building; upstairs is the court and there you have all the administrative and social workers – the court clerk… When orders are made the court clerk types the order right away so things work faster,” she stated.

She added: “There are lots of things that I realized that I’m not supposed to be doing. But sometimes you need to go the extra mile to sort of address the problem, and I find myself doing a lot of what probably should be social workers’ job, and that is taking time.”

Augustus said that many of the services available to families in St Lucia are not available here. She assured that there are new reform laws in dealing with young persons which are focused on not bringing them into the system but preventing them from getting there. This special legislation is needed so that family court can be installed here. That has been in the making for some time now, she said.

“What they look at is the total thing. Not just about a case but dealing with an issue and how best we can deal with it; what are the other underlying problems; if there is a way that we can, through the court system, deal with that or through the government system – refer that persons,” she stated.

Augustus described family court as a treatment plan for troubled families.  She specifically mentioned the issue of child visitation  and domestic violence  which is normally associated with lengthy court processes.  Under the family court system, a special team of persons would be assigned to deal with these issues.

Classes would also be available on court order to persons involved in domestic issues, parenting and others.

“I’ve seen the system fail people where we probably need to work with that family… but it’s limited by what you can do and the time that you can do it and that’s why some people feel that magistrates don’t make them talk because they want to talk for the whole day… because they probably feel the need to express,” she stated

Augustus described herself as an advocate for the cause.

She currently sits in Roseau Magistrate’s Court No. 3, which deals mainly with family matters – juvenile, custody, maintenance, domestic violence issues and the care and protection of young persons. In out-courts, family matters are dealt by the magistrate who sits in these districts.