With more than 765 family cases on the Supreme Court calendar for 2012 and only one judge exclusively hearing civil matters in New Providence,
a "tremendous" backlog of cases is overwhelming an already burdened justice system, according to Chief Magistrate Roger Gomez.
The breakdown revealed the majority of matters were uncontested divorces, which accounted for 435 of those cases.
There were 60 contested divorces; 20 adoption applications and five applications under the Mental Health Act, according to statistics provided

by the Family Court System Committee.
Retired Justice Rubie Nottage, head of the committee, said the court's calendar is booked until March 2013, meaning a significant portion of those cases can not be heard before April.
"That is the delay time for hearing of a contested divorce because of the tremendous workload that there appears to be in the family division," Nottage said.
Gomez told The Nassau Guardian while criminal cases, particularly murder, often take months before they are heard in the lower courts, it is crucial for certain family matters to be processed quickly.
"We have to have these cases decided in a very swift manner," he said. "For example, if a wife is being battered, we can't tell her to come back to court in three months.
"That is what is happening now because the court is so overbooked. We have one magistrate doing all of the cases in the Magistrate Courts for families."
In one Magistrate's Court alone, 3,217 family matters were heard between January and December of this year.
Those cases ranged from child support, child custody, order for binding over to keep the peace and legal separation, Nottage said.
Asked what portion of those cases is related to violence, Nottage said that data was not available.
She said the committee has proposed several measures, including appointing a statistician to compile the information and make it available for processing.
"We are proposing that someone be assigned to the court...so we can begin to record that kind of information, which is vitally important to understanding the family division," she said.
Even as officials in the executive and the judiciary try to address a problem that has plagued both division of the justice system, the family cases continue to pile up.
On Wednesday, the committee presented a detailed action plan to Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson for a new 18,000 square foot Family Court complex to be established on the second floor of Town Centre Mall, Tonique Williams-Darling Highway.
Maynard-Gibson said she will review the report and present it to Cabinet before the end of the year.
However, with an already high government deficit and limited capital expenditure the facility may not become a reality anytime soon.
"We want this family court because in the family courts, as they exist now, those judges hear civil matters as well as criminal matters and that would [allow] those cases to be heard much more regularly," Gomez added.

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