Dominica is among six countries in the Eastern Caribbean to benefit from EC$200,000 from the UK’s Caribbean Security and Stability Fund (CSSF) to facilitate remote operations of the magistrates’ courts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The other countries are Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Kitts and Nevis
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced jurisdictions to implement stringent physical distancing rules to lessen the risk of transmitting the virus. These measures have resulted in the suspension of physical court activity.
As a functioning criminal justice system is essential to delivering law and order and reducing the risk of social unrest, the US/UK Criminal Justice Adviser to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Sirah Abraham, approached CSSF for assistance to support remote working in regional Magistrates Courts, a press release said.
The funds will be used to purchase equipment including laptops, printers, scanners, mobile phones and Zoom subscriptions. The equipment and use of technology will allow the courts to make a smooth transition to the digital delivery of some essential services and limit substantial disruption to the criminal justice process.
The Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC), Dame Janice Pereira, had already urged courts to use remote hearings to facilitate the continuation of proceedings and prepared guidance on how these matters were to be conducted in a practice direction issued in relation to COVID-19 emergency measures.
Abraham explained the importance of ensuring a responsive and adaptable criminal justice system during the pandemic:
“This support will reduce the risk of spreading the virus, prevent courts from being shut down as a result of spread and limit any delays in the criminal justice process by ensuring that these essential services are still provided to the public,” he said.
They should assist them in distributing fair and equitable justice in a timely manner.
Dominica under Skerrit is like the average citizen. We always have to receive help to survive just as the average citizen always have to be seeking help to seek medical assistance abroad. Yet Skerrit and Melissa reaping off $70 per month to stay in their palace that our passport money built. We just working hard to take care of Skerrit and Melissa. We have become a blind nation like Jim Jones and his blind and stupid followers
Thanks Uk for your support. Us small islanders need all the help we can get.
You certainly are not like the USA that is distancing itself from us when it comes to helping in our time of need.
Good❗ The work of the court must go on despite all the turmoil caused by COVID-19. What I will like to happen in the courts in Dominica, is the cessation of the bogus charges brought before the courts to PERSECUTE law abiding critics of the discredited and morally depraved Skerrit-led autocracy. Let justice be blind. The trumped up charges against Mr. Joshua Francis were dismissed just so should be the spurious charges against Mr. Lennox Linton. Such cases are giving the justice system a Black Eye. They only serve to further erode the already little confidence that the masses have in our jurisprudence.