Skip to main content

Attending Court in Jamaica








  1. Dress appropriately! No shorts, t-shirts, no sleeveless, avoid wearing t-shirts bearing obscene graphics, no flip flops, no caps. Rastafarians and other religious groups that cover their heads as a part of their religious rites are allowed to wear their head dress. Unless you are wearing a bush jacket men are required to tuck their shirts into their waistbands. No setters. No breasts and brassieres exposed. No boxer shorts exposed.


  2. Depending on the judge men with pierced ears might be required to remove them before addressing the court.


  3. Answer the judge respectfully. Despite the popular belief of many a Jamaican, referring to females you have no relation with by terms of endearment such as "baby, mummy, auntie, sweetheart, darling, honey" is impolite. Never ever refer to a female judge or Clerk of the Court as such.  In like manner you do not refer to a male judge as "breddrin, father, my youth." "Yu see me?" is also inappropriate.


  4. The Clerk is to be addressed as "Madam Clerk" or "Miss So and So".


  5. The judge is referred to as your Honour if the judge is a Judge of the Parish Court and My Lord or My Lady if the judge is a Judge of the Supreme Court.


  6. There is to be no chewing of gum or eating in court.


  7. Turn your cellphone off before entering the court room.


  8. Do not speak out of turn. Allow the person who is speaking to complete their statements before interjecting.


  9. NEVER ever interrupt a judge when he or she is speaking.


  10. Sucking ones teeth publicly is still considered bad manners.






SaveSave

Comments

  1. You mean to say in this day and age, there are judges who ask men to remove their earrings? How utterly ridiculous!!


    Hilaire

    ReplyDelete
  2. On other thing, I think part of the problem of lack of information on the part of Jamaicans is that courts rarely if ever have any signs posted indicating or explaining court protocol. I remember testifying in a California Superior Court (as expert witness) in 1999, and I do recall seeing signs/information posted in simple language. This was certainly helpful for me, despite being a lawyer. Certainly there are rudimentary elements of court protocol that are common to courts regardless of jurisdiction, but as a non-US lawyer, the info was useful.

    I think the time has come for courts to reinvent themselves - from being judge/official centred to people-centred. The current paradigm contributes significantly
    to people being not only uninformed, but alienated from court proceedings. Certainly, having signs that explain court protocol would be a step in the right direction. Insisting that police on duty at courts treat people with respect and not shout at them or demean them would be another.

    Hilaire

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Hierarchy of Jamaican Courts

Taken from the Ministry of Justice's website: http://www.moj.gov.jm/node/view/22

Rape, The Reality of too many Jamaican Women

Unfortunately, rape is a reality for too many women and young girls in this country. Oftentimes the atrocity goes unreported, and understandably so. The Jamaican rape victim is more often than not raped repeatedly by those uninformed persons with whom the victim is required to interact, having made a report. POLICE Starting with the police. It is said that rape is often committed between 9 pm and 5 am. Yet the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse is closed during those hours. The result is that victims are made to rely on the police officer in the guardroom ... their first point of contact with the system. I recall one mother from a ghetto community testifying that she took her eleven-year-old daughter who had been raped directly to the hospital. She was told by the hospital staff she has to report the matter to the police station with jurisdiction over her community. She got the police station at 9 pm and the police offer said, "Come back tomorrow...

Practicing Law with Integrity

According to Jamaica's General Legal Council's website, fifty-seven attorneys have been disbarred between 1978 and 2018.  Below is a breakdown of the numbers:  1978 - 1 1988 - 1 1990 - 1999 - 8 2000-2010 - 27 2010-2017 - 18 2018 - 2 (to date) The majority of these attorneys were disbarred between 2000-2010; the period right after the passing of The Legal Profession (Accounts and Records) Regulations, 1999. The regulations, which are still in force, require attorneys to maintain separate accounts for client funds and provide the GLC with records of their management of client accounts. Between 2010-2017 there was a 33% decline in the number of attorneys disbarred and while will have to wait to see what the next 18 months will bring as the number of disbarred attorneys to date is upsetting, not just for the public but also for attorneys who practice law with integrity. One does not have to read the rulings published by the Disciplina...