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COURT REPORTING PROGRAMME
 Court
reporting is the process of making a complete and accurate record of
trial court proceedings. No trial should take place without a
verbatim account of these proceedings.
In 1962 machine shorthand was introduced into the Supreme Court of
Jamaica and the trained stenotype machine writers created the record by
writing the words spoken in court in shorthand symbols - often referred
to as "outlines" - on the stenotype machine. The
outlines were recorded on a narrow paper tape from which the reporter
would type the transcript on a typewriter.
In the early 1990s court reporters at the Supreme Court received some
training in the CAT (Computer Aided Transcription) system. CAT is
the most recent in a long line of technological innovations in
stenography and is by far the dominant contemporary court reporting
technology. This sophisticated type of reporting helps the court
reporters to do their work more efficiently. CAT facilitates the
process of translating machine shorthand outlines into English by
allowing the speed of the computer to undertake the most time consuming
aspect of transcription - reading the shorthand notes and translating
them back into English - and this is done through the medium of a
dictionary that tells the computer software what each shorthand outline
means in English.
In recent times the need for more speedy production of notes in trial
matters in the Courts came to the fore. Consequently the Ministry
of National Security and Justice, in an effort to further improve Court
operations, embarked upon a CAT/Real-time Training Programme, geared
for persons who have an interest in pursuing a career in the court
reporting profession.
January 5, 2000 saw the launch of this programme - a CAT/Realtime Court
Reporting School, the first of its kind in Jamaica. At present the
Court Reporting School, coordinated by Mrs. Minette Shields, is located
at 12 Ocean Boulevard, Kingston Mall, Jamaica.
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