By Grace Q. Bryant
Chief Justice, Sie-A-Nyene Yuoh demanded two bailiffs of the 6th Judicial Circuit Civil Law Court to make court ‘returns in the public which she termed as part of the rebranding of courts’ activities.
With reference to the term ‘Returns’, the law says that when one sues a person, partnership, corporations or the government, he or she must give formal notice to the other side that you have started the legal process. In the same way; when one is already involved in a case and files papers with the court, he or she is required to give the other side notice of the paperwork he or she has filed.
The legal way to give formal notice is to have the other side served with a copy of the paper work that you have filed with the court.
However, Chief Justice Yuoh’s action during the opening of the Civil Law Court yesterday was based on Judge Kennedy Peabody’s charge complaining that the bailiffs can hardly file a return after an application has been filed.
According to Judge Peabody, the court has noticed that assignments are not recorded and when he gets to court and asks for returns; nothing can be available asserting, “When we call the sheriff for returns, he normally replies that he doesn’t know who served the said Writ. We have a procedure to record all summons and assignments and how we serve said assignments.”
He complained, “We are appealing to all lawyers and party litigants that I will not preside on any case that a lawyer will give assignment to a bailiff, because the Bailiffs keep those assignments in their pockets and when they come to court, we do not see anything.”
Judge Peabody said the 6th Judicial Circuit Court has one sheriff and all the bailiffs fall under that sheriff; therefore, all matters relating to the court must be recorded in the sheriff’s office and the sheriff has the responsibility to assign cases to the bailiff to serve.
It can be recalled that, Chief Justice Yuoh, on her recent court tours, surprisingly observed that there was a bailiff who have worked with the Judiciary for 15 years and could not read and write.
The Chief Justice then reiterated during the court’s opening that the evaluation was a part of the rebranding of the image of the Judiciary; stressing that the little time she has as a Chief Justice, she will make sure that the rebranding is perfectly done.
The Chief Justice, in the presence of everybody, called on all bailiffs and sheriffs and instructed two bailiffs Nancy Johnson and Zebedee Freeman out of the group to write returns for which they performed poorly.
In a reaction to a bailiff who spelled defendant as ‘defendent’, the Chief Justice said ‘this is how he has been spelling it; just as that other bailiff.
The Priest of the High Court indicated that for 11 years, the reason why some people work in the Judiciary without knowing anything is that they were recommended by the same judges and magistrates; adding that the Judge will take the penalty for any misspelling by court officers.
Chief Justice Yuoh stated, “as Chief Justice, if I see any returns with a misspelling, the judge of that court and the magistrate will bear the penalty; saying that the judges and magistrates are the ones that read the returns.”
“We have seen in some returns that bailiffs and Sheriffs cannot find a party’s defendant for even one month; that is unacceptable. If any apple comes to the Supreme Court and we see on the return that you were unable to serve precisely on a party’s defendant for one month, something is wrong with you and we will take that as been unqualified to serve in the position of a bailiff,” she pointed out.
The Chief Justice explained that talking about qualification, she is not talking about a degree, rather; she is talking about how he or she manages the court.
Similar thing happened during the tenure of the late Chief Justice Johnnie Lewis when he invited several journalists covering the Judiciary and mandated them to spell out his name thereby giving them the correct spelling with a caveat never to misspell same.
