Specialised land court needed

MONTEGO BAY, St James — An attorney- at-law whose background includes a stint at the Titles Office and the role of a land tenure specialist has called for a court dedicated to land matters, pointing to severe judicial backlog and a critical lack of specialised expertise among judges handling property disputes.

“The reality is that a lot of our judges are not well-versed in land law. Many of them have come out of the DPP’s (Director of Public Prosecution’s) office; they have a criminal background. We find that the land matters are taking too long, and there are just too many land matters. Land is crucial to Jamaicans. So we need to do something. I think a specialist land court, like how we have a traffic court, a gun court — we need a land court,” said Gloria Brown, a senior partner in the firm Brown, Finlay and Company.

She was speaking with reporters after Monday’s presentation at the World Habitat Day Conference, held at S Hotel Montego Bay under the theme ‘The Struggle for Land, Shelter and Sustainable Communities’.