Kingston, Jamaica (McKoy’s News)- Bogus Divorces Fake Judges Signing Decrees at Supreme Court: A major police probe is now underway involving staff members in the divorce unit of the Supreme Court, according to Justice Minister Delroy Chuck. The probe is based on the discovery that divorce decrees that have been and are being stamped by the Registrar of the Supreme Court are being signed by fake judges.
“One was signed by a James Brown, there is no judge known as James Brown,” Chuck said this morning.
The decree absolute is the second of two documents required to dissolve a marriage. “This to my mind is just scandal of the highest order,” Chuck said. “The whole divorce section has been corrupted!”
The minister said because of the frustration in obtaining divorces people have become willing to pay to accelerate the process. He said the divorce documents signed by fake judges were being presented to his Ministry by people who, having obtained them, went ahead and got married again and were now seeking new marriage licenses.
Chuck has since reported the matter of the bogus divorces to the police’s fraud squad and stated that if the investigation is not progressing at a satisfactory pace, then it will be escalated to the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA).
According to the Justice Minister, although several persons from the divorce unit have already been charged for corruption, it seems that there are many more rogue employees at the unit. He emphasized that the delays are being produced in the public sector to accommodate the corruption.
The president of the Jamaican Bar Association, Jacqueline Cummings agrees that the divorce delays have been chronic as the procedure that would have taken three months is now taking up to a year to process.