A miscarriage of justice, like any other miscarriage, is not necessarily caused by prejudice, malice or sheer ignorance, although those aggrieved by it may think it is.
If it involves the birth of a child, blame is sometimes placed on the attending midwife or physician.
If it is a case in one of the many courts in our judicial system blame is often placed on the presiding magistrate, judge or tribunal as the case may be.
If it is a matter within the purview of a civil servant or a gatekeeper to authority, the reaction may be a build-up of frustration and rage that leads to a mental disorder, even to violence.
Often the person aggrieved thereby feels that the miscarriage is aimed directly at them, when it really has nothing to do with them; it’s simply due to bad management by the hospital or court administration at some step in the process of recording or otherwise dealing with the matter.
Many a criminal case has been dismissed on procedural grounds because one side or another has not filed a document in the right way, on the right day, or using the right colour ink.
People guilty of all kinds of crime have been known to get away with it not because they were not guilty – they obviously were, as evidence has clearly shown – but because a step in a correct procedure, established a century ago was missed or was made in other than the designated manner.
One of the chief culprits in the miscarriage of justice in the Industrial Court is that the court itself is underfunded and underresourced.
As a result, cases can take years to get on the court schedule, just as in the criminal courts and in the civil jurisdiction or cases referred to the DPP’s Office. And so the dictum that justice delayed is justice denied comes to pass not by spite or mischance, but by mismanagement due to parsimonious budgeting of resources on the part of the government.
The courts’ (plural) administrations are overloaded with cases and under-loaded with days on the calendar to have them heard.
As a result documents submitted when the case was first sent to the court are stored away and not read as they come in by the members (the equivalent of judges in other courts) who will eventually hear the cases, because they will not be assigned until sometime in the future when the case can find a place on the court calendar.
When it is assigned, the members, already working on several other cases before them, often do not get around to reading the documents submitted and depend on what will come out orally during the hearing.
That can work, provided the statements of case have at least been seen, as have the written statements of witnesses who will be called to give evidence on oath, as they are taken orally through an examination in chief and are cross-examined.
[caption id="attachment_961144" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Members of the Industrial Court during the ceremonial opening in Port of Spain in September 2020. File photoS - File photo[/caption]
It is not exactly the same as a case in a civil or criminal court, as
