Barbara Gayle’s article in last Sunday’s Gleaner – ‘See you in 2022: Four-year waiting list for civil cases in the Supreme Court’ – was heartbreaking.
It was about a woman who was injured in a motor vehicle accident. The mishap probably occurred in 2014 or before. She “wept uncontrollably” after she learnt from her lawyer “that the first available date for the trial of her lawsuit would be in 2022”.
That news put her in a state of “disbelief and shock”. Her case has been going “back and forth” for the last four years. She is in pain every day, can hardly walk, and cannot afford to buy medication.
There are hundreds – perhaps thousands – of victims of motor vehicle accidents across Jamaica like her. Some are children who are dependents of persons who were killed in crashes. The compensation system, consisting of motor vehicle insurers, lawyers, court administrators, and others, as inferred under the Motor Vehicle Insurance (Third-Party Risks) Act, MVITPRA, places them under a great amount of stress.
Getting compensation is often a long and difficult process even when one is familiar with the process. Six of the articles that I wrote this year over a seven-week period, namely ‘Motor insurance law shortchanging accident victims’, ‘The smart approach to personal injury coverage’, ‘A cry for justice, Minister Chuck, Curbing the problem of uninsured drivers’, ‘Claims settlement through dispute resolution’ and ‘Unfairness in insurance contracts’, highlight some of the difficulties.
The problem analysis by the court official and Jamaican Bar Association president in Ms Gayle’s article was, in my opinion, only partly correct. They cited the need for more judges.
Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck’s analysis is more on point. He doesn’t believe that more judges alone will fix the problem. All parties in the litigation process – claimants (litigants or plaintiffs), attorneys, judges, court officials, and insurers – and institutions outside of the system, like the insurance regulator, have important roles to play. When this happens, the effectiveness of the compensation system will improve.
Leave A Comment