Chief Justice Anthony Smellie announced yesterday creation early next year of a new Family Court that will operate alongside the four existing specialist tribunals, while offering reassurances the quartet would continue normal operations.

The announcement of the innovation came as part of affirmations by the top judge on the continuity of the four panels in the wake of last week’s departure of Chief Magistrate Margaret Ramsay-Hale, chief advocate for the
specialist tribunals.

“Work will also resume shortly on the creation of a specialist Family Court,” the Chief Justice press office told iNews yesterday, discussing the four panels: Drug Rehabilitation Court (DRC), mental health, domestic violence and driving-under-the-influence (DUI).

“This effort will be spearheaded by Mrs. [Catherine] Guilbard in her role as Special Projects Coordinator for the Judicial Administration,” the office said, “which she commenced four years ago with her work on the setting up of the DRC. The same approach will be taken with the setting up of the Domestic Violence Treatment and DUI Courts, and it is the Chief Justice’s intention to have them formally instituted in very much the same manner as the DRC, via legislation, rules of court and
so on.”

The court will be created under the auspices of newly arrived Grand Court Justice Richard Williams, who recently joined the Cayman Islands judiciary from the Turks and Caicos Supreme Court in a near-swap for Ms Ramsay-Hale, who left George Town on 28 October to take up an appointment as “puisine judge” in the Providenciales high court.

While details remained sketchy regarding the new court, an outline of its jurisdiction suggests it will deal with matters now handled in both the Grand and Summary courts: divorce, child and family maintenance, custody, affiliation and other family-centred disputes.

Described by one courthouse official as a “sort of one-stop shop for a range of family matters”, the new court was initially to have been created in 2009, housed in dedicated space in a proposed new courthouse on Agnes Way, behind traffic-police headquarters.

While construction was cancelled in the wake of a struggling economy, the official said, “the problems continued, and now we have to get on with it.”

“The court will operate,” the officer said, “on the drug-court model, prescribing treatment courses for habitual offenders while holding sentences in abeyance, pending completion of counselling and behavioural programmes.”

Referring to the functions of the specialist courts, the officer said: “The same can be expected for the other pilot courts started by the Chief Magistrate. They are all based on the Drug Court model.

“In the meantime, the work in the DRC and in the pilot Courts will continue. Both of the incumbent magistrates [Nova] Hall and [Valdis] Foldats already have experience in these Courts; Magistrate Hall, in particular, has been from the beginning one of the pioneers of the DRC programme.”

In early January, a committee headed by Mr Justice Williams will begin a close examination of family-court operations in other jurisdictions, led by Trinidad and Tobago and drawing on North American experience. Existing legislation will be studied and consideration given to any new laws that may be required.

“It’s a little difficult to say when the new court may convene,” the official said, “but we will start early in the year and hope to make this happen very quickly.”