A campaigner has discovered through public access to information that the Supreme Court is contending with a backlog of 73 criminal cases, some dating back to 2021.

Eron Hill, the executive director of the Bermuda Equal Justice Initiative, obtained the figure from the Acting Registrar of the Courts, who told him there were two judges and two courtrooms dealing with criminal matters.

Mr Hill told The Royal Gazette the number did not represent the “whole picture”, as there were also cases from before 2021 still to be tried.

He called for extra resources to tackle the backlog, prompting Attorney-General Kim Wilkerson to state yesterday that the Government was “actively addressing this issue with urgency and intention”.

Mr Hill claimed: “Defendants are languishing in the system. We need more resources into the criminal justice system. That’s for judges, for prosecutors, for defence attorneys.

“We need more court space. We need an increased budget for the judiciary. It’s every aspect of criminal justice reform.

“This isn’t blaming the court or any one person. It’s saying: we have a problem. It’s in everyone’s interests” to fix it.

Mr Hill, who requested statistics dating back only to 2021, said the figure of 73 surprised him.

“It’s alarming. I knew there were a lot [of untried cases] but no way I would have predicted above 50.”

The Acting Registrar provided Mr Hill with a table showing that 27 of the cases were from this year, 22 from last year, 15 from 2023, three from 2022 and six from 2021.

She also shared a table listing the 90 offences involved in the 73 criminal cases dating back to 2021.

Six were murder-related, 30 drug-related, 21 involved a firearm or bladed article, 11 involved money laundering, eight were related to causing death or grievous bodily harm while driving under the influence, six involved wounding, six involved sexual offences and two were manslaughter-related.

The Acting Registrar explained in her letter to Mr Hill: “The totals reflected in table two do not reflect the total amount of cases still to be tried, but the total number of offences.

“Criminal cases before the Supreme Court may involve one or more triable offences, ie, a defendant may be charged with a murder-related offence and a firearm-related offence on the same indictment and those offences will be tried together as one case.”

She told Mr Hill: “There are two justices and two courtrooms assigned to the Supreme Court criminal jurisdiction. However, one of those courtrooms is utilised by the Court of Appeal for a three-week period, three times each year, ie, during the March, June and November Court of Appeal sessions.”

Mr Hill said the Court of Appeal sessions meant one of the criminal courtrooms was unavailable for dealing with untried matters for nine weeks out of the 51 available in the year for trials to take place.

“If you just do the maths, and I haven’t done it yet, [the question becomes] how long is it going to take for these trials to take place?”

He said delays were unfair on defendants, whose lives were on hold while they waited for their day in court, and unfair on complainants.

Mr Hill added: “I’m confident that there is a will, certainly on the part of the Attorney-General, to tackle this. I know she is committed to doing it.

“She’s just one person, though. There has to be buy-in from others on every aspect of this. We have to look and say: we have a problem, how do we resolve it?”

Ms Wilkerson, who is also the Minister of Justice, said in response to questions: “The Government fully recognises the profound impact of court backlogs on defendants and victims and we are actively addressing this issue with urgency and intention.

“As recently as [Wednesday], during the Senate debate on the 2025-26 budget, I outlined several concrete investments in the judiciary.”

The minister said those initiatives included:

• A 19 per cent increase in funding for courtrooms and chambers in the Supreme Court to support judicial capacity, including hiring assistant justices when needed

• Additional funds allocated for legal services, private legal counsel and transcription services, “all essential to ensuring timely court proceedings”

• A capital investment of $1 million to replace the outdated case management system and modernise scheduling and tracking to reduce delays

• Funding to support renovations of the Dame Lois Browne-Evans building to increase courtroom and administrative space.

Ms Wilkerson added: “My ministry has prioritised the resolution of these issues in our budget planning and these measures reflect our clear, ongoing commitment to strengthen the justice system's capacity and reduce the backlog of criminal cases.

“Furthermore, as part of ongoing law reform, we will soon begin stakeholder consultation on amendments to the Jurors Act to ensure that criminal cases are not further held up due to jury selection issues and can be fairly adjudicated in a timely manner.”

Efforts to reduce the backlog of criminal cases were also detailed earlier this year by Puisne Judge Juan Wolffe, the supervising judge of the Supreme Court’s criminal division, who said he and his team had “successfully implemented a robust, aggressive and comprehensive approach to scheduling matters for trial and other non-trial hearings, and to reducing a backlog of cases which had accumulated for quite some time”.

He added: “In doing so, we made certain that accused persons are tried within a reasonable period of time and are not remanded into custody for inordinate periods and that victims of crime would receive a semblance of closure for what may have been a traumatic experience for them.”

There was $57.7 million allocated to the Ministry of Justice this year, an increase of $2.9 million on last year.

The Gazette has approached the Chief Justice and the Department of Public Prosecutions for comment.