By Theron Boodan

There are several prisoners who have already spent more than their jail terms in prison but cannot be released because they are awaiting their appeals against their sentences. In one case, a man sentenced to 12 months, is in prison more than five years now still awaiting his appeal.

Speaking about some of these cases yesterday was Independent Senator Dana Seetahal, following her successful application on Friday to get bail for one of these men. These matters she spoke of are magisterial appeals, and the cases have not been listed because the notes of evidence and or the magistrate's reasons have not been made available to the Court of Appeal.

Contacted yesterday, a fuming Chief Justice Sat Sharma said yesterday, "It's really shocking. It's unacceptable. I was not aware of these cases... and this is part of the problem we are facing. If these matters were brought to my attention I would have dealt with them effectively. These are the kind of things we need to address immediately. We cannot have that... we cannot boast about the rule of law while we treat people's freedom flippantly. These are the kind of things that bring the administration of justice into disrepute."

On Friday, Kenneth Scott of Tobago was granted his own bail in the sum of $10,000 by Justice Rajendra Narine, following an application by Seetahal, who was represented in Court by attorney Dawn Mohan. Scott was sentenced to three years for possession of marijuana at the Tobago Magistrate's Court, but appealed his sentence. Since then Scott has been in prison for 32 months awaiting his appeal. Had he not appealed, he would have already served his three-year sentence which in prison years would have amounted to 24 months. Previously Scott was not granted bail.

Seetahal also talked about several other prisoners she is representing including a Guyanese who was sentenced in 1998 to 12 months for indecent assault. He also appealed, and is still in prison to date awaiting his appeal.

Since last year the CJ acknowledged that there was a pile up of magisterial appeals. And the reason for this he said was an "archaic and ineffective system of note taking and reproducing evidence. All done by hand."

He explained that this was only part of a larger problem in the system that he was tackling, and had said so in his maiden speech as Chief Justice during the opening of the 2002/2003 Law Term.

He indicated yesterday that he only becomes aware of some of these ills in a piecemeal way, and that is when somebody raises these cases.

He said to prevent all these injustices from recurring, everybody must play their part and all the systems must work. "There must be a concerted effort. This is not a one man show, and where appropriate I will act.

"It's unacceptable that it happens. It happens in all countries, even those with the most matured and sophisticated system. I am not condoning what happened, but when there are too many of it, it is cause for concern and got to be addressed immediately."

The CJ called on all law assemblies and the prison authority to help deal with these problems. He said these people are incarcerated and need all the assistance they could get. He suggested that affected prisoners should write the Law Association.