Being a lawyer, I hereby declare my interest in this matter touching on the administration of justice. We all want to see an efficient judicial department, but, we should not in pursuit of efficiency forget the importance of justice and the welfare and health of those involved in the administration of justice.
In the pursuit of efficiency, court has been order to sit and hear cases at 8.30 a.m., instead of the usual 9.00 a.m. and quality of work has been compromised. Such a change had affected the daily lives of many members of the police force, prison and court staffs, judges, magistrates, lawyers, witnesses and members of the public. Lawyers, judges and prosecutors now have to work until late night as they have to rush and finish their cases within a certain time frame period. Those involved in court work has short lunch break and cases finished for the day as late as 7.00 p.m. There were cases where judges, lawyers and those involved in the in trials only left court as late as 9.00 p.m. By the time they reached home it would already be very dark. Their kids may have already gone to bed by the time they reached home. They could not now spend much time with their children. In order to finish cases at hand, some judges even suggested trial to continue at weekends.
To police and prison officers, they have to reach their offices even before dawn as they have to get ready the prisoners so that prisoners could reach court before 8.00 a.m. In the long run, the health of those involved in the administration of justice would be affected. This will not be good and the government will in turn, see rising cost in hospital bills from government servants. Time will come that many government servants may just fall sick. The government should first conduct a study and impact of change on the health and psychological effect of such a drastic change before implementing a change in the administration of justice. We don’t want due to work stress a day will come that there could be bad things happening in court which may take lives of judges, lawyers and those involved in the administration of justice.
In the pursuit of efficiency, court has been order to sit and hear cases at 8.30 a.m., instead of the usual 9.00 a.m. and quality of work has been compromised. Such a change had affected the daily lives of many members of the police force, prison and court staffs, judges, magistrates, lawyers, witnesses and members of the public. Lawyers, judges and prosecutors now have to work until late night as they have to rush and finish their cases within a certain time frame period. Those involved in court work has short lunch break and cases finished for the day as late as 7.00 p.m. There were cases where judges, lawyers and those involved in the in trials only left court as late as 9.00 p.m. By the time they reached home it would already be very dark. Their kids may have already gone to bed by the time they reached home. They could not now spend much time with their children. In order to finish cases at hand, some judges even suggested trial to continue at weekends.
To police and prison officers, they have to reach their offices even before dawn as they have to get ready the prisoners so that prisoners could reach court before 8.00 a.m. In the long run, the health of those involved in the administration of justice would be affected. This will not be good and the government will in turn, see rising cost in hospital bills from government servants. Time will come that many government servants may just fall sick. The government should first conduct a study and impact of change on the health and psychological effect of such a drastic change before implementing a change in the administration of justice. We don’t want due to work stress a day will come that there could be bad things happening in court which may take lives of judges, lawyers and those involved in the administration of justice.
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