Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 November 2017
547. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of judges appointed to the Court of Appeal; his views on whether this is sufficient; the status of the case backlog in the Court of Appeal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46845/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Court of Appeal comprises the President of the Court of Appeal and nine ordinary judges.
Following the establishment of the Court of Appeal on 28 October 2014 the waiting times for appeals has reduced significantly and the waiting times as at June 2017 were as follows:
(a) Civil Appeals
- fast tracked short appeals (requiring less than 2 hours) - 12 months subject to the case being included in the "short cases" list and with the possibility of an earlier date, and
- other appeals (requiring more than 2 hours) - the waiting time for these appeals is 18 months (compared with up to 48 months for non-priority cases to be heard in the Supreme Court before the establishment of the Court of Appeal).
Urgent appeals such as Hague Convention/child abduction and refugee asylum cases continue to be accommodated having regard to the degree of urgency demonstrated. Also civil appeals which have a custody and/or criminal element are now case-managed in the Criminal Courts of Justice by the panel of 4 judges assigned to deal with the criminal appeal list thus ensuring the degree of priority necessary for hearing of such appeals. As a result waiting times for these cases are as follows:
- Article 40/habeas corpus appeals and bail appeals are usually heard in one month or less,
- European Arrest Warrant cases and Judicial Review cases are heard within the current legal term provided the necessary papers are in order.
(b) Criminal Appeals
Criminal Appeals have a waiting time of 6 months. This is significantly better than the 18 month waiting time in the Court of Criminal Appeal prior to the establishment of the Court of Appeal. Hearing dates can now be allocated during the subsequent legal term to the majority of cases included in the List to Fix Dates (held once a term). An occasional case which requires a full day or in excess of a day, or a case where for various reasons a date during a specific week/month is requested by the parties and which the court simply cannot accommodate due to the availability of court time, will be allocated a date during the subsequent term.
Criminal appeals (and civil appeals for hearing in the Criminal Courts of Justice) are actively managed on a weekly basis by the Judge assigned to management of the criminal lists to ensure cases are dealt with as efficiently as possible and delays in moving cases to the List to Fix Dates due to procedural issues arising are kept to a minimum. Applications for priority may be made at the weekly management list.
The matter of resources in the Court of Appeal, taking into account its current workload including the substantial inherited backlog and bearing in mind resources across the courts, is currently being examined.
