Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has announced significant changes coming to the judicial system in the coming financial year to speed up criminal cases and commercial claims.

Miss Mottley was speaking as the House of Assembly debated a plan to change the standing orders of the house to allow for ministers and their technocrats to be questioned in detail during the upcoming estimates debate.

The Prime Minister announced that there will be more criminal courts and a special commercial court.

Prime Minister Mottley called the new estimates debate format a monumental change in the governance of the nation that allows the process to become more transparent.