Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 25 September 2013
38. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if his attention has been drawn to the fact that in some criminal cases where a suspended sentence is imposed the term of the suspended sentence may expire due to delays in appeals being heard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39856/13]
View answerAs the Deputy will be aware, under the Courts Service Act 1998, the management and administration of the courts is a matter for the Courts Service while the allocation of the business of the courts, scheduling of cases and management of lists are matters for the judiciary and in particular the Presidents of the courts. The Deputy will also be aware that judges are, subject to the Constitution and the law, independent in the exercise of their judicial functions.
A suspended sentence imposed by the District Court is appealable to the Circuit Court. In such instances the District Court would normally, or on request, fix recognisances in the event of an Appeal. Once the appellant has lodged an original of the Notice of Appeal, together with a statutory declaration as to service and entered into a recognisance as fixed by the Court the suspended sentence is stayed pending determination of the Appeal by the Circuit Court. Where an appeal is to the Court of Criminal Appeal there are established procedures in place for applications for priority to be made to the judge having management of the List and the basis for any such application could include an assertion that the term of the suspended sentence is likely to have expired before the hearing. The Courts Service has indicated that an appeal by a convicted person against a suspended sentence is rare except perhaps where the terms of the suspension are deemed to be too onerous. An appeal against conviction might be brought in a case where a suspended sentence was imposed but where the suspended sentence is of itself not the subject of an appeal. In addition, the imposition of a suspended sentence can be the basis of an undue leniency application by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). There are currently 154 cases in the Court of Criminal Appeal list awaiting hearing; sixteen of these are undue leniency applications by the DPP and four of those applications concern sentences where sentence was suspended.
The President of the Circuit Court is determined to achieve improvements in waiting times and has been working with the Courts Service to target judicial resources at the areas with longest waiting times. It should be noted, for example, that in 2011 there were 674 weeks of Circuit Court sittings in venues outside Dublin. This has increased to 767 weeks in 2012 and the President plans to increase capacity to 888 weeks during 2013, a 30% increase over 2011. The additional weeks will be provided across crime, family law and civil matters as well as dealing with District Court Appeals. With the increase in capacity assigned to date in 2013, significant progress has been achieved in reducing waiting times across the Circuit Court.
The Service has indicated that waiting times in the Court of Criminal Appeal vary depending on the category of the case. As already mentioned, priority applications may be made to the court and the judge will decide such applications on a range of competing priorities. I am informed that the Chief Justice, in consultation with the President of the High Court, has convened 9 additional sittings during September and the first week of October to deal with sentence appeals and undue leniency applications. A total of 55 such cases have been allocated hearing dates comprising 36 sentence appeals and 19 undue leniency applications.
