Kingston and St. Andrew traffic ticket day runs past midnight as backlog slows courts

Motorists who turned out for traffic ticket day in Kingston and St. Andrew left the National Arena frustrated after midnight on Thursday, many still without settled cases despite a two-day push meant to clear a heavy backlog.

The session opened at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday and did not wrap until sometime after 1:00 a.m. Thursday. Proceedings had been scheduled to close at 7:00 p.m. on both days, but work continued well into the night before officials decided to halt the process. Day two was expected to follow the same pattern.

Inside the arena, judges presiding in temporary courtrooms worked through long queues of outstanding tickets, pausing only for brief breaks between sessions. Chief Justice Bryan Sykes said the scale of the effort was extraordinary. "It's a tremendous effort on behalf of the judges and the staff, the prosecutors, but it shows you the importance of having the inter-agency cooperation," he said.

Sykes linked delays partly to the slow move away from paper-based court records. Police can now issue tickets more quickly, he noted, but the courts still depend heavily on physical files. "What we have now is that the police are able to issue their tickets faster, more efficiently, but we are still struggling with paper within the court system. So, this experience has emphasized the need to digitize," he said.

About 6,000 people registered for the event and roughly 4,000 held warrants. Those motorists carried close to 44,000 outstanding traffic tickets between them. Court administrators said that figure represents only about five per cent of all outstanding traffic tickets in the two parishes.

Sykes said the data points to pressure in Jamaica's largest population centres and along major highway corridors, including St. Catherine, St. Ann and St. James. He said efficient systems must be put in place so those parishes are not overwhelmed.

Some motorists were sent away with details for night court to continue their matters. It remains unclear how many tickets were cleared over the two days. Communications Director Kadish Jarrett Fletcher said officials are still compiling the figures.