Prominent counsel calls on govt to pay long-overdue, court-ordered payments

Prominent senior counsel and former President of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers’ Confederation Tanya Wright is calling on the government to settle payments that have been ordered by the courts, urging the present government to break the system of non-payment that has ballooned into millions of dollars.

Wright said in a statement that she applauds Attorney General Ryan Pinder for contending that judgements against the government must be paid, but she questioned where the money will come from to satisfy the arrears.

“If there is a problem, there is a solution,” Wright said. “It shouldn’t take the government years and years to settle a judgment against it when the very judgment was awarded because of inexcusable delay in the first place.

“The speedy justice pledge falls short when judgment payouts take years.”

Wright said given that governments are  `continuous, there is no point in placing blame, but what matters most is who will correct the problem.

She added that while the current administration says it has pledged millions in funding to cover the judgements, she remains “cynical” about the promise.

“As we enter the first quarter of 2022, where is the money for these judgments? There are judgments for damages which were awarded against the government for its failure and breach of a citizen’s constitutional rights by causing unreasonable delays in the delivery of justice. Article 20 of the constitution guarantees you a right to a fair trial and a trial within a reasonable time. A still broken criminal justice system continues to result in protracted delays in matters being prosecuted, delaying in some cases vindication to the accused and the opportunity to get back to some semblance of the life you had before becoming a part of the system,” Wright said.

“When you are compensated for this delay, a part of the damages is exemplary damage, to provide some incentive to the state to provide a criminal justice system where trials are heard in a timely manner. But what is the point of all of this emphasis on speed in the delivery of justice, when there is no incentive to pay judgments in a timely manner and no consequences for their failure to do so?”

Wright questioned whether the government’s failure to settle judgements is comparable to “a system thumbing its nose at the judiciary and also to the constitution”.

“To know that a debt had been ordered to be paid by the court and to have the means and deliberately, willfully and contumeliously fail to make provision to pay would be circumstances for which, if done by an ordinary citizen, would expose him to penalty for contempt of court,” she said.

“I am grateful that this attorney general is committed to purging the government’s existing contempt of court in settling its outstanding judgment debts. As an officer of the court, there may be ways that working with the attorney general can help to bring about reform in a meaningful way. However, much of the heavy lifting has to be done internally.”

The post Prominent counsel calls on govt to pay long-overdue, court-ordered payments appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.

source https://thenassauguardian.com/prominent-counsel-calls-on-govt-to-pay-long-overdue-court-ordered-payments/