The delay of cases has been a major factor that has been contributing to the backlog of cases. In fact, according to Justice Roxanne George there is an urgent need for these factors to be addressed in order to facilitate the smooth flow of justice.? In highlighting her point, Justice George said that part of the problem is that “we don’t have enough judicial officers both at the Magistrate and High Court level, specifically for the High Court…”She explained that in the High Court for instance “we are supposed to have the Chief Justice and 10 judges but we currently have the Chief Justice and nine judges.” Of the nine, one currently sits in the Commercial Court, two are in Berbice, one is in Essequibo, two are in Demerara, one is in the Civil Court? and two are tasked with addressing Criminal matters while another deals with Family matters and injunctions. The proficiency of the judges is affected by the number of cases and the varying challenges that they face.It was a few years ago that Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Carl Singh said that the appointment of part-time judges will help to reduce the backlog of cases in the High Court.The lack of judicial officers,China NFL Jerseys, Justice George said is compounded by the jury selection process which is affected by a number of economic issues which includes the jury service fee which is very, very minimal,China NFL Jerseys, coupled with transportation cost which offered at a pro-rated tariff. As such, the transportation cost “doesn’t cover the cost of getting you from home to court depending on where you are…so we have to treat with all of these issues because they affect the flow of justice within the system. It causes delays because we must have 30 persons sitting in court before we can impanel to get out 12 jurors before we can even proceed with a criminal charge.”Two hundred and twenty-six cases were listed to be heard during the last January Assizes. Last year there were 206 matters on the list of cases for the Assizes. Sixty-one cases received attention. Of those presented, 40 were from the Demerara Assizes,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, 15 from the Berbice Assizes and six matters from the Essequibo Sessions.There were 31 cases for the offence of murder, two cases for manslaughter, one case for incest, five cases for rape, one case for robbery under arms, three cases for causing grievous bodily harm, 12 cases for carnal knowledge, one case for buggery, three cases for attempt to commit murder, one case for wounding with intent and one case for causing death by dangerous driving.During the year, 53 cases were presented in court.? Eight were nolle prosequi (dropped) by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP).Additionally, prejudice on the part of jurors has been listed as one of the many reasons that have been highlighted to indicate that there is a dire need for the revamping of the local jury system. This is according to State Counsel, Konyo Sandiford.? According to Sandiford who operates out of the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecution, while there is an urgent need to address the system,China Jerseys Cheap, “we are working from a very small pool and there is a possibility that there are a lot of people available for jury work, who want to do jury work but are not being selected because we are so slow in our revising of the (jury) list.”According to her “we can cite a number of problems with the current system but it is not just a matter of pointing blame but it is something that needs to be fixed,” if the ideal outcome of some trials are to be realized. Sandiford’s remarks were forthcoming as she presented a number of cases which fell through in the High Court between 2010 and 2012 due to a number of reasons which included lengthy delays, changes in statements, lack or death of witnesses,China Jerseys, flawed identification parades, but was certainly not limited to jury prejudice.According to Sandiford,Wholesale Jerseys, there are currently a number of variables that could determine the outcome of cases in the High Court and “when persons are not cognizant of the various variables and that trials fall through for one reason or another people then tend to feel that there is no justice in Guyana and you can do all sorts of crimes and get off…but they don’t understand why many of these cases fall through as they do today.”