KINGSTON, Jamaica — In the wake of Hurricane Melissa’s punishing sweep across the island, Jamaica’s judiciary is quietly waging a different kind of battle—one rooted not in law, but in grit.
With courthouses in several parishes left damaged or decimated, a new kind of resilience has emerged. From Santa Cruz to Montego Bay, court officers and administrators—many of whom suffered personal losses—have resumed operations, sweeping mud from halls of justice and cobbling together a functional system from fractured infrastructure.
What’s unfolding is not just a cleanup—it’s a test of Jamaica’s legal backbone. And behind the scenes, leadership is holding. Senior judges and courthouse managers have taken initiative, not waiting for directives but instead organizing recovery logistics, coordinating temporary reroutes for court services, and ensuring that critical operations such as bail hearings and urgent filings can proceed with minimal disruption.
In parishes like Hanover and St James, these impromptu recovery efforts have transformed wreckage into progress. Makeshift courtrooms have emerged. Damaged registries are being reconstituted using backup records. The judiciary isn’t simply surviving—it’s improvising with intent.
But in places like St Elizabeth, the outlook is more grim. Structural losses are near total, forcing justice sector leaders to explore mobile court units and emergency partnerships with community spaces. Even so, staff in these zones continue to report for duty. Some arrive from roofless homes, others from temporary shelters—yet they show up in uniform, with case files in hand.
Observers close to the system note this episode has brought into sharp focus the necessity of institutional disaster planning. Training programs in judicial leadership, emergency response, and facility risk assessment are expected to scale in the coming months. If the storm tested Jamaica’s judiciary, it also exposed its nerve and potential for reform.
The recovery is far from over. Yet even as courtrooms lie in ruin, the principle of justice is not—because its stewards have refused to let it be.
The Chief Justice is expected to continue his assessment with a stop at the Westmoreland Parish Court in the days ahead.
