Update: Court System Backlogs – Justice & Equality 24th September, 2014

QUESTION NO:  117
DÁIL QUESTION addressed to the Minister for Justice and Equality (Ms. Fitzgerald)
by Deputy Bernard J. Durkan
for WRITTEN on Wednesday, 24th September, 2014. 

 *  To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the backlogs that exists throughout the court system; the extent to which remedial action taken has been successful to date; and if she will make a statement on the matter.

                                                           – Bernard J. Durkan
 
REPLY.
The scheduling of court cases and the allocation of court business is a matter for the Presidents of the courts and the presiding judge who are, under the constitution, independent in the exercise of their judicial functions. The Presidents monitor waiting times across all court lists and seek to ensure the optimum use of court time. The Deputy may wish to refer to Section 6 of the recently published Courts Service Annual Report which contains information on Waiting Times across the various court jurisdictions.

However, in order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had enquiries made and the Courts Service has informed me that the primary objective for the Courts Service and the judiciary is to maintain the delivery of front line court sittings and services.  The Courts Service continuously works to support the judiciary and assist in so far as is possible and appropriate, within the terms of its mandate, in ensuring that cases are dealt with as effectively and as speedily as possible.  Available resources and operational and organisational structures are under ongoing review to ensure that resources are targeted and focussed on keeping waiting times in the provision of services to a minimum. 
 
The Presidents of the various courts are determined to achieve improvements in waiting times and they are working with the Courts Service to target judicial resources at the areas of greatest need.  The Presidents continue to arrange additional sittings where possible within the resources available to them to deal with any delays in the hearing of cases. The Courts Service is also working with the judiciary on the implementation of a number of initiatives in relation to court procedures and  initiatives arising from the report of the cross agency Working Group established to identify and implement efficiency measures with a specific focus on the high volume Circuit and District Courts.  These include the centralisation of custody cases and the use of alternative courts venues in the District Court; a new practice direction in the Circuit Court in relation to sending forward for trial; a pre-trial procedure which is operating in the Dublin and the Midland Circuits on a pilot basis from 1 December 2012; increased use of video links between courts and prisons; and the provision of same-day probation reports.
I am informed that waiting times in the Circuit and District Courts vary from venue to venue based on the number and complexity of cases. In relation to the High Court, waiting times are generally in the range of 1 to 5 months except in relation to Asylum cases where the delay is currently over 2 years.  I am informed that delays in the Asylum list are due to several factors including the high volume of cases. Delays in lists also occur where parties who have certified the case as ready to proceed and/or applied for a hearing date inform the court that they are not ready to proceed on the allocated date and apply for adjournment.
The President of the High Court keeps waiting times under continuous and additional sittings were held during August and September with a view to maintaining the improvements made in waiting times in recent years. The High Court has, as is usual, dealt with bail lists on one or two days each week during the court vacation and sat each day and during several weekends to hear matters arising of an urgent nature. These sittings will continue until the commencement of the next legal term. The ongoing delegation to court officials of administrative functions previously dealt with by the High Court judges has also yielded significant savings in judicial times resulting in increased judicial availability for trial work.  The re-organisation of sittings of the High Court outside Dublin by the President of the High Court also continues to achieve efficiencies in the use of judicial time.
The Courts Service has indicated that the waiting times in the Central Criminal Court are 16 months. Waiting times in the Supreme Court for certified cases are on average 11 months for the priority list and 48 months for the general list. In the Supreme Court remedial actions have been taken to reduce the number of uncertified cases.  A total of 255 appeals have been disposed of by the Supreme Court to date this year in its continuing programme of managing uncertified appeals.  A further 115 uncertified appeals are proposed to be listed on 29 September 2014 for this purpose.   In the first and second quarters of 2014 there was a 13% increase in new appeals lodged and an 81% increase in the number of appeals disposed of when compared with the same period in 2013.   While some immediate improvement has been achieved in reducing the backlog that has accumulated in the Supreme Court over the past number of years, the issue of capacity in the Supreme Court will only be fully resolved through the introduction of the Court of Appeal which is due to be established in October 2014.

It should also be noted that delays in the hearing of cases can occur for a number of reasons which can be outside the control of the courts and the Courts Service, e.g. the unavailability of a witness or where the parties or the legal practitioners may not be ready to proceed. This can give rise to adjournments which can have an impact on the time taken to complete the hearing of a case and on the number of cases which can be disposed of in a court sitting.