CJ: Judiciary’s hands tied in many instances

“We sentence, accompanied with a great deal of frustration, but we are constrained to sentence people within the confines of a legislative structure that is imposed on the judiciary, which is why, we have been trying to find creative means of establishing exactly the sort of restorative principles you have been talking about,” he said. Asked to comment from the floor at a Bocas Lit Fest forum on crime and punishment on Sunday at the Old Fire Station, Abercromby Street, Portof- Spain, Archie said, “What we have is an ordering of priorities and a lack of education at the level of people who set policies. We do not set policies in the judiciary.” It was unfortunate, he said, that there is a perception that the judiciary, a small component of the justice system, is perceived as having the power to change what needs to be changed. The concept of national security in this country, he said, is really skewed.

“The Ministry of National Security receives about $10 billion a year, which is about 20 percent of the national budget, recurrent.

The judiciary receives less than half of one percent of the national budget,” he said.

“Let us stop spending $20 billion on the conventional notion of national security which is batons and prison cells,” he said adding that there needs to be greater discussions on the justice system.He said the judiciary tries to engage the policy makers but they have not reached the level of understanding of what the justice system needs to truly restore people and to bring them to a place where they could be productive members of society. “What we do not teach in the education system is how to resolve conflict.” Archie said unless people are assisted in making the right decisions they will end up before the courts.