The country’s Parish Courts cleared more criminal cases than they received in 2025, recording an overall clearance rate of 103 percent.
The performance is being highlighted as part of continued efforts by the judiciary to reduce case backlogs and improve the speed and reliability of the justice system.
Shaloy Smikle tells us more.
A case clearance rate measures whether a court is keeping up with its incoming workload.
Anything above 100 percent indicates that the court is resolving more cases than it receives and is actively shrinking its backlog of older files.
According to the Court Administration Division, CAD, the Parish Courts achieved an overall criminal clearance rate of 103.44 percent in 2025.
In a release on Thursday, the CAD says this is the fourth consecutive year the courts have surpassed the 100 percent benchmark.
It says the parish courts also recorded an overall criminal net backlog rate of 2.16 percent.
This means only about two of every 100 active pending criminal matters were older than two years.
The CAD says the Hanover Parish Court recorded a criminal backlog rate of just 0.11 percent and an average civil clearance rate of nearly 151 percent.
In the Supreme Court, the Commercial Division recorded a clearance rate of nearly 133 percent, resolving 558 business disputes against 420 new filings.
The CAD adds that the Special Coroners Court recorded a clearance rate of about 174 percent in 2025, reflecting efforts to address longstanding legacy inquest matters.
Meanwhile, the Gun Court achieved its fastest resolution time in the Supreme Court at an average of 16 months.
Beyond the judiciary, the CAD says these efficiency gains represent a powerful engine of macroeconomic stability.
It says rigorous statistical modelling confirms that every 10 percent increase in national court clearance rates is associated with a 0.82 percent boost in real GDP growth.
But the CAD says despite these achievements, challenges remain.
It says the High Court Civil Division has a backlog rate of about 64 percent.
The CAD further notes that traffic court registries had more than 186,000 unresolved matters in 2025.
