Members of the Bench, Judiciary, Private Bar and the public were given a customary outline of some of the potential developments that may take place during the new Law Year in Anguilla, by Attorney General James Wood, on Tuesday this week.
He was at the time speaking at a special session of the Anguilla Courtpresided over by Acting Judge, Justice Cheryl Mathurin, to mark the opening of the 2012-2013 Law Year.
Mr. Wood reported that work on the Halls of Justice project was continuing and that it could offer the prospect of standardised, high quality court buildings to serve each of the nine jurisdictions including Anguilla. “There will always be the issue as to how these constructions will be funded, but innovative ways are being considered with a view to gathering the necessary monies,” he stated. “Further work will be required to produce solutions that could work for Anguilla, and efforts are being made in this direction.”
He was grateful to members of the Anguilla Bar for recognising the significance of introducing a new Legal Profession Act with a Code of Ethics for practitioners, and for their work on the draft Bill. He said there were only two or three outstanding points needed to be resolved before the Bill could be taken to Executive Council. “We should soon be able to make significant progress towards a properly established and well-regulated legal profession,” he stated.
The Attorney General continued: “The integration of the Magistracy into the wider judiciary is also a significant step forward,” he said. “In the last couple of weeks we have seen our Magistrates robed in Court, and being addressed by their new title ‘Your Honour’. This nomenclature reflects assimilation in status to that of the Crown or Country Courtin theUnited Kingdom. These are positive developments. It is only right that Magistrates are accorded the upmost respect and dignity in carrying out their judicial functions.
“There will be some technical hurdles for all of the jurisdictions to overcome in integrating the Magistracy properly into the judicial system. But, hopefully, due to our status as anOverseasTerritory, it should not be as burdensome as for several of the independent states, in making their required constitutional amendments.
“Criminal Justice Law reform is a very important issue. It was raised again by Government a few months ago, with the unexpected incidents of violence that occurred here in Anguilla. Rather that producing a knee jerk response, the Legal Department was asked to advise on measures that would go towards reforming the criminal justice process. With the valuable assistance of the Commissioner of Police and others, we are finalising that package of measures to be considered by Executive Council. These measures that are adopted will be worked on, and comments and views sourced from the Court, the Bar and the general public.
“Anguilla may be one of the smaller jurisdictions, but we are committed in our support of the initiatives of the Court. And I can also observe, despite being relatively small in number, the independent Bar is also clearly prepared to be of service to the Court. This year will see no less than three of our local counsel acting as Judges of the High Court. This is indeed worthy of note.”
