Moonilal: Hall of Justice a/c down, toilets not working

THE AIR conditioning in the Hall of Justice has been down for weeks and the public toilets were not working, says Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal.

He was contributing to debate yesterday in the House of Representatives yesterday on the Criminal Division and District Criminal and Traffic Courts Bill.

He said because of the air condition unit being down for a month, judges have had to moves cases to San Fernando or adjourn.

“They are claiming they don’t have money to fix the air condition so there is no solution in sight.”

He said the air condition has affected the delivery of justice.

“Today you want to set up a whole new structure and institution. The public toilets in the Hall of Justice are not working. So if you go to the Hall of Justice you have to go Woodford Square or somewhere else to use the toilet. These are real matters we face as a crisis. What is the court administrator and deputy court administrator (introduced in the bill) going to do about that? Fix the toilet?”

Newsday was informed the air condition unit was down for two weeks and the court protocol and information unit reported there was a problem with two compressing units. Because the required parts were not available locally, a short-term solution was implemented last weekend.

Moonilal said because of a lack of planning in the setting up of the Children Court, staff from the Judiciary were being poached and judges are facing problems because their staff are leaving. He said judges and their teams were operating without critical basic necessities such as paper, ink for printers, stationery and toilet paper.

He said the staff at the High Court were demotivated because of the lack of payment of travelling and jacket allowances and acting gratuity payments. He also reported, the San Fernando Magistrates Court was operating on a shift system like a junior secondary school and was being housed in the High Court building so high court matters were being stalled. He also said most of the magistrates courts did not have electronic recording devices and the Family Court did not have an operational library.

Moonilal said the bill appeared to be short and non-contentious but it was not as simple as it appeared.

- with additional reporting by Jada Loutoo

**Just In**

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