Caribbean Law

A recent report by the Kaieteur News newspapers of Saturday, March 14, 2009 carried the caption “21,366 civil matters pending at Dec 2007”, and detailed the difficulties being experienced by the Judicial system in dealing with the amount of litigation before it. The report gives some account of the efforts at alternative dispute resolution in the field of mediation, as part of the effort by the Justice system to cope with its problems, along with the old idea of appointing part time judges. There is no mention or suggestion of using the age old, highly successful medium of arbitration to dispense with any number of civil matters, as a cost effective, timely alternative to litigation. It is perhaps one symptom of the lethargy of the system that this method is not in use except in Trade Union matters and is the purview of a few handpicked individuals. It is not intended at this time to expound on the use of arbitration locally, but to introduce readers to utility...

It is a well established practice in Guyana, that upon the slightest hint of discord people begin to think of visiting a lawyer with the ultimate aim of having their day in court ,which should supposedly provide a final settlement to the dispute. This is hardly strange since the Common Law history of our country and the rest of the English speaking Caribbean is based on the adversarial system ; being essentially a system in which two or more parties involved in a dispute will approach a court (or formal dispute resolution forum in which one or more judges sit to try the dispute).This system is heavily based on the presentation of evidence and the persuasiveness of the arguments presented, thus the winner of the dispute is most often determined by an expert combination of those factors. In example many persons would recall the late Johnny Cochrane, criminal attorney for O.J Simpson in the 1994 trial because of his persuasive rhetoric and elegant yet flamboyant manner of delivery, which ...