No one needs to convince Trevor Moniz that Bermuda?s justice system is in crisis.

For him problems infect every branch of the system.

But while many are keen to proffer their opinion it?s all just hot air to the Shadow Attorney General until some hard facts are garnered.

He has long championed the need for a complete audit of Bermuda?s justice system.

?We need an audit of our justice system terribly, badly, in crisis. Nobody seems terribly interested.

?Paula Cox vaguely says I should talk to the Deputy Governor but it?s something we desperately need. Until that?s done we are not going to move forward.

?Huge problems are not being addressed by this Government in a sufficient way.

?The problems are pandemic, throughout the system. There is no area of the system which doesn?t have serious problems ? the judiciary system, the prosecuting office, the Police, the prisons.

?We see the prosecution losing files, we see the Police saying firearms are getting out of hand and we need more Police officers.

?We see the prison is full to overcrowding, we see where there should be prosecutions like the Southside asbestos scandal and there will be no prosecutions.

?So whenever a case comes up involving a politician it is swept off to the side, it submerges from the ocean, disappears from sight and everyone says magically it is being dealt with.

?How, where is it? Let?s table this report. I don?t like the look of it. It smells like a cover up. That?s the perception.?

However report writers often fell into the temptation of trying to please everyone rather than get to the heart of the issue said Mr. Moniz.

Powerful people trying to use influence to get away from things wasn?t a new phenomenon unique to Bermuda said Mr. Moniz but it didn?t condone it continuing.

?We see huge scandals like the BHC scandal which float along in limbo year in year out.

?There?s a public perception that there is a lack of political will to fully deal with cases of political corruption.?

Mr. Moniz said the Home Affairs Minister Randy Horton had said crime was down.

?If crime is down why is the prison full to bursting and why are we getting 11 new police officers for the front line police support unit?

?That unit is about serious problems ? guns and gang violence. It?s serious stuff.?

He welcomed the extra officers and said all sectors of the justice system needed better support said Mr. Moniz.

Police were working in slum conditions at Hamilton Police station said Mr. Moniz. ?They were promised a new Police station 25 years ago. It was described as temporary accommodation then.?

Small amounts of money had been budgeted for a replacement building but ground had not been broken said Mr. Moniz.

He said overall Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Kulandra Ratneser, who is on a temporary contract, had done a good job.

?He?s certainly been willing to take cases on and to do them himself.?

His replacement would need a wealth of experience at a high level in a DPP?s office.

?We need a complete review of Police,? continued Mr. Moniz. ?The general rule is they need to be visible on the street doing what they are supposed to be doing. Crime goes down when you have a greater Police presence.?

He said statistics were misleading and some people were no longer reporting minor crime anymore because Police weren?t coming or coming late.

?People mention crimes to me and I say what did you do about it? They say ?Nothing, what?s the point? They won?t come or they will come too late and they won?t do anything anyway so what?s the sense? So reporting of crime goes down.

?Meantime the politicians are saying everything is fine, lovely and dandy. They are spinning it out for all that it is worth.?

He called on set response times like those used in the UK.

?If someone calls how soon can someone be there? What?s the response time statistically? Any civilised place has a response time. Whether it be ambulance, a police car, any emergency vehicle.?

?The first thing we need is new courts. We probably need to pay the judges significantly more money to attract appropriate candidates and to make the job worth doing.

?No successful member of the private bar will take on any of those jobs. There?s just no money in it. And to go and work in those slum conditions out there is not attractive.?

He said there were some good lawyers in the Government system.

?If you want to attract private members of the bar who are successful they are not going to go. You might attract candidates already in the government system but if you want a bigger pool of candidates??

There were indications more judges were needed said the Shadow Attorney General.

?But without an audit of the system how do we know for sure? Everyone is speaking with an absence of data. The first thing you need is data and lots of it.

?Everyone is shooting off their mouth and giving an opinion on a subject on which there is incomplete data.

?We need a survey and study to find out why there is so much court delay. We see judges themselves saying there are huge problems with court waste.

?The judges are blaming the lawyers, the lawyers blaming the bureaucracy of the court system. You are going around and around pointing fingers.

?The one thing everyone agrees on is we have a serious problem with time management in the courts and we need to address it.?

But Mr. Moniz defended preliminary inquiries, condemned by the DPP and defence barrister Mark Pettingill alike, as time-wasting manoeuvres.

But he admitted they were open to abuse.

?It?s standard practice when there?s a petty crime like handbag snatching where foreigners are involved for the defence to insist the foreigner come and give evidence at the preliminary inquiry (PI) just to make their life miserable and hope they go away.

?Something should be done about that. Provided the defence are given the appropriate access to the evidence in the case I think we can speed the process up.?

But PIs had stopped further waste of court time where cases were dropped at the request of the prosecution witness said Mr. Moniz.

He was supported by Bermuda Bar Council president David Kessaram told last week that preliminary hearings filtered out cases which weren?t worthy of proceeding with. He said: ?If you abandon that you go straight from being charged to a trial.?

Mr. Moniz said a consults? report on judicial salaries had called for large raises but had been ignored by Government, as had a bar counsel report saying the same thing.

In his critique of the justice system no one escapes Mr. Moniz?s wrath ? not even the general public.

Mr. Moniz is a supporter of jury trials which had been openly questioned by his UBP colleague John Barritt. But he said too many bright people were dodging their duty.

?A lot of people in the community do not live up to their public obligation. I get people who call me all the time to ask how to get out of jury duty.

?I don?t tell them how to get out of it, I tell them how to do it.

?In this community we have too many free riders who want to take all the benefits out of society and put nothing back in and it angers the rest of it.

?Some of them are the people getting the most out of society.

?People need to be trained about being on a jury. It needs to be inculcated in school about your social responsibilities, people just don?t have a clue about civic responsibilities.?

The contempt of court sanction for those evading jury duty needed to be used more said Mr. Moniz.

?People are let off too easily. We might need to revamp the regulations.?

@EDITRULE:

Coalition for the Protection of Children chairwoman Sheelagh Cooper.