John Deasy
Ceist:514. Deputy John Deasy asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the backlog of cases before the Court of Appeal; and his views on its effectiveness since being established. [54624/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraTuesday, 16 January 2018
Ceisteanna (514)
Freagraí scríofa
As the Deputy is aware, under the provisions of the Courts Service Act 1998, management of the courts is the responsibility of the Courts Service, which is independent in exercising its functions, which include the provision of information on the courts system.
However, in order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had inquiries made and the Courts Service has informed me that following the establishment of the Court of Appeal on 28 October 2014, 1,355 civil appeals then pending in the Supreme Court were transferred to the Court of Appeal. Of those cases just 257 appeals were certified by the solicitors for the appellants as being ready for hearing. 660 criminal appeals, then pending before the Court of Criminal Appeal, were also transferred.
In addition to the legacy caseload, the Court of Appeal (subject to constitutional provisions for direct appeals to the Supreme Court in certain circumstances) is the appellate court for all appeals from decisions of the High Court (including the Central Criminal Court), the Special Criminal Court and the Circuit (Criminal) Court. Between 28 October 2014 and 30 September 2017 there were 2,824 new appeals lodged to the Court of Appeal - 1,897 civil appeals and 927 criminal appeals.
As at 30 September 2017 there were 1,947 appeals awaiting a hearing, of which 1,399 are civil appeals, and of which 745 are cases transferred from the Supreme Court. 548 criminal appeals are outstanding, of which 20 are appeals transferred from the Court of Criminal Appeal. Please note that data for Q4 2017 is not yet available.
The Court of Appeal comprises the President of the Court together with nine ordinary judges. Of this complement of ten judges, four judges are assigned by the President to deal with criminal appeals, while the President and the remaining five judges deal with civil appeals. The civil appeals list is managed by the President of the Court of Appeal, while the criminal appeals list is managed by another judge of the court nominated by the President.
The Court sits every day in term in a minimum of two divisions to hear civil appeals and criminal appeals subject to one week each term being allocated for preparation of reserved judgments in cases, where important issues of law arise and where the court is of the view that judgment cannot be given immediately after the appeal hearing.
The Courts Service has advised that the waiting times as at the end of November 2017 were as follows:
(a) Civil Appeals
- fast tracked short appeals (requiring less that 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.
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.
A recent initiative agreed between the Chief Justice and the President of the Court of Appeal has seen a first tranche of 60 legacy appeals (transferred from the Supreme Court) identified for transfer back to the Supreme Court with a view to an early hearing date in that court. 20 of these appeals have been transferred back to the Supreme Court and of these 9 appeals were heard in the Supreme Court in December 2017 with the remainder being actively case-managed by the Supreme Court with a view to a hearing in February 2018.