Court reform - Court case backlog must be cleared

IF justice delayed is justice denied, then the operation of the Irish court system leaves much to be desired.

This applies particularly to an unacceptable situation where extremely grave charges, including murder and rape, can become bogged down in the legal pipeline for months if not years on end.

The inordinate delay in bringing the perpetrators of serious crimes to book is a compelling reason for streamlining the country’s over-burdened legal system.

In a welcome initiative aimed at reducing the backlog of cases, a major report released today recommends that rape and murder cases should in future be tried in the Circuit Court, where feasible.

In the interest of expediting the legal process, the report proposes that rape trials and possibly some murder trials could go before the Circuit Court, as opposed to the Central Criminal Court, where these cases are currently heard.

In a significant contribution to the debate, the Rape Crisis Centre warns of the risk of a victim’s identity becoming known if a case was to be heard locally rather than in Dublin, where anonymity would be more or less guaranteed.

There are also grounds for fearing that a move to the provinces, so to speak, would tend to downgrade the gravity and complexity of crimes which heretofore had been heard before the highest judges in the land.

Before any decision is made on where a case should be heard, it is essential for the authorities to take into account such questions as the anonymity of the complainant and the degree of gravity and complexity attached to the case.

In a significant proposal, the report recommends that in an instance of murder the views of the victim’s relatives should be sought on where to hear a case.

An important aspect of the Fennelly Report would see preliminary hearings being held in order to clear up legal complexities which can often bog down jury trials to an unwarranted degree.

Another proposal would enable any accused person to elect to go for trial by jury in the Circuit Court, a suggestion likely to be opposed by the Director of Public Prosecutions on the grounds that it could increase the workload of the courts.

This argument was rejected, however, by a majority of the working group.

The significance of this report can be gauged from the fact that it represents the first proposal to overhaul the jurisdiction of the criminal courts since the foundation of the State.

That makes it all the more important for the Government to respond decisively to its many recommendations.

Thanks to better management of the system in recent times, the degree of delay involved in bringing a major case to court has been reduced from an average of 18 months to around 14 months.

By any assessment however, a hold-up of over a year between the time investigations are completed and a trial can begin is both unwarranted and unacceptable.

The Fennelly Report is an important marker on the road map towards a more streamlined judiciary.