In one fell swoop, a system that has worked well over the past 13 years has been dismantled. With just a memo from the Chief Justice and no warning, the specialist Coroner’s Court has been discontinued, with the system reverting to what it was more than a decade ago, adding the inquests into suspicious and questionable deaths to the already overburdened Magistrates’ Courts.
One of the reasons for scrapping the court is the complaints from “angry Bahamians” that the inquest for Daniel Smith – the son of American celebrity Anna Nicole Smith – had been set for hearing October 23, well ahead of pending cases. “Some of them have even been given dates for their cases a couple years ago and they are still waiting to have a hearing,” Chief Magistrate Roger Gomez told the Nassau Guardian.
That does not wash. The fact that some people may have complained about the date set for the Daniel Smith inquest is a poor excuse indeed for the dismantling of a working Coroner’s Court system. If Coroner Linda Virgill was at fault in moving the Smith inquest to the head of the line, then say an error in judgment was made and set a new and reasonable time. That should not be the basis for scrapping a system that is needed and was seen to be working.
It is good to hope that the number in inquest hearings can be reduced with 13 magistrates (coroners) hearing cases instead of one single coroner.
However, that road has been travelled. The reason for the establishment of the Coroner’s Court in the first place was to relieve the backlog of inquires waiting to be heard in the Magistrates’ Courts, which resulted in a tremendous backlog in the Supreme Court, which then operated in quarterly sessions, causing a serious breakdown in the speedy administration of justice.
In reverting to a system that did not work economically in the past could reintroduce the bottlenecks that previously caused cramps in the judicial process, and also brought frustration to funeral directors who had to search for magistrates to have releases signed that would enable them to take bodies from the morgue.
“We’re disappointed that we have to go back to the old system where we have to go and find a coroner or a magistrate to sign a release,” said Pedro Ferguson president of the Bahamas Funeral Directors and Embalmers Association. That thought was also echoed by Director of Butler’s Funeral Home and Crematorium, Loretta Turner-Butler, who called the Coroner’s Court “a godsend,” in alleviating much of the frustration and stress involved in planning funerals.
Although the perception of the public may be that many decisions are coloured by political overtones, the Judiciary is an arm of government that is independent of the Executive and the Legislative branches. The decision of the Chief Justice is his alone, but the question at this time on the decision to discontinue the Coroner’s Court is the timing and the fact that it was forced by a situation which to many people may be questionable, and will therefore remain unresolved.
It would have been better to take the inquest to the end, if it was deemed necessary, then set a time for the system to revert to what it was prior to the 1993 revamp.
Source: The Freeport News
