MEDIA RELEASE - Judiciary Corrects Erroneous Statement in The Guardian about Filing Fees

30 January 2023

The Judiciary notes the erroneous statement in the Guardian that the Rules Committee is proposing significantly higher filing fees. The statement was obviously made without any genuine attempt to understand what is being considered and why.

The Rules Committee is actually considering a proposal for a restructuring of filing fees so that single fees are paid at certain phases in a case as opposed to multiple fees for every document filed and requested. Fees will be paid by the phase of the case and not by the document.

At present a fee is charged for every document that is filed and for every office copy of an order, a judgement or any document.

This will no longer be the case. A single fee will be charged at the following stages:

1. Filing and Response

2. Case Management (if no settlement or default judgement before)

3. Pre Trial Review and Trial (if no settlement before)

No other filing fees will be charged along the way. And no fees will be charged for office copies.

For the last three years during the pandemic, no filing fees were charged. During this time the Judiciary introduced electronic filing. Now that the systems have been worked out with the Treasury to pay online for electronic filing, there will be a small fee (.08% when paid by credit card or enabled debit card) each time a payment is made online. Alternatively, a voucher or voucher card for a value of between $20.00 and $8,000.00 can be purchased at a cost of $5.00 and be drawn down on by attorneys or litigants in person. For this reason among others, the Judiciary sought the support of the Rules Committee in reducing the number of times one paid in the course of a matter from as many as 50 or 60 times to as few as 3 or 4.

It allows the Judiciary to streamline its accounting and to be far more efficient.

As most modern judiciaries, the Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago has moved to electronic filing which is available from anywhere 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Prior to this, filing was only in person at the particular court office and only available from 8 am to 4 pm.

Electronic filing affords far greater convenience to litigants and attorneys and also enables the Judiciary to realign its staff to operate more critical functions in the process.

In this regard the Judiciary has submitted to the Public Management Consulting Division an extensive plan to realign its staff roles in order to provide more support to critical process functions and focus less on issues such as calculating and reconciling $2.00 and $3.00 payments and counting the fee payable when whatever number of pages are requested at 72 cents per folio. The Judiciary continues to await the approval of its re-alignment plan which does not add to the staff cost of the Judiciary but uses the Human Resources more sensibly and efficiently.

It is to be noted that the cost to the Judiciary of running a system of hard copy filing is by far greater than running one by electronic filing. Taking hard copy requires more Human Resources to do paper work, to scan the paper documents (to put them into our electronic system after the attorney has prepared them on a computer but printed them in order to file them hard copy), to buy and create hard copy file folders, file them, and retrieve them, to take and secure cash and to transport cash securely, and to account for cash against each document in a manual cash accounting system which operates in the public sector. It also requires extensive, secure and environmentally appropriate vault spaces at each location and auxiliary archival space. It also is a duplication of the electronic system and is highly inefficient and archaic. Electronic filing and e-payments are key parts of the digitalization of the Judiciary and when all of the parts of the system are finally all allowed to function will redound to the benefit of the litigants, lawyers and the country.

The system of paying for phases also incentivizes early settlement as opposed to dragging out a case. Good case management is also incentivized by this approach. This also is key for a good judicial system.

This is one of a series of changes on which the Judiciary seeks to embark in order to improve its service delivery. Many of the systems the Judiciary seeks to change are holdovers from colonial times and jettisoned now by the courts and public services of the former colonial masters. Unfortunately, many of these changes require the approval, support or interest of sometimes disparate agencies or groups which do not understand and often do not seek to understand how Judiciaries function, or how the Judiciary is made to function in a public service system and how and why they do what they do.

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