The Gazette 1981

INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND

GAZETTE

Vol. 75, No. 5

June 1981

"Justice delayed . .

E welcome the proposal of the President of the High

Court for additional sittings of the Central Criminal

Court at the end of the long vacation to clear the back log

in that Court caused by the foolish statutory provision

(now removed by the Courts Act 1981) enabling a

defendant to secure the automatic transfer of a case from

the Circuit Court to the Central Criminal Court.

Unfortunately, the position with regard to Jury Trials

set down for hearing in Dublin, Cork and Galway is

unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future. It is under-

stood that there are now over 3,300 cases set down for

hearing, which means that any litigant now setting down

his case cannot hope to obtain a hearing before

November, 1982. Since, in the majority of personal injury

cases, it must be likely that the case will not have been set

down until the medical prognosis of the Plaintiff's

condition has been decided, probably at least a year to

eighteen months after the injury, there can be no

likelihood of the case being heard in Court until three

years after the events giving rise to the injury. By this

time, witnesses' memories will have dimmed, some may

have died or gone abroad, thus limiting the prospects of a

proper trial.

To say that a high percentage of cases is settled is to

beg the question. If the proportion of cases settled fell, the

waiting time for hearing would lengthen.

Another area where the level of service to the public

has fallen far below acceptable levels is that of default

judgments. It is accepted officially that a period of up to

eight weeks elapses between lodgment of papers and

signing of the judgment. Such a delay could clearly be

fatal to a creditor's chances of collecting the debt. The

figures for Summary Summons issued show a doubling

within four years and staffing has not kept pace with that

increase.

Criticisms have again surfaced of delays in the

furnishing of reserved judgments in the High Court. Such

criticisms must be tempered by the fact that the facilities

provided for judges in our legal system are of a kind

which practitioners would not tolerate for long in their

own practices. To require judges in long and complicated

cases to rely on the notes which they have been able to

write down during the course of the cases is bad enough,

but to add to this the obligation to carry out all the legal

research into the authorities which may have been quoted

(or, as may happen, not quoted) to the Court during the

hearing of the case imposes an intolerable burden on our

judges. This is not to say that it might not be a useful dis-

cipline if each High Court Judge were to adopt the

practice of some members of that Court of indicating the

date on which a reserved judgment will be delivered.

Deadlines concentrate the mind wonderfully and judges

are no exception to this rule.

The fundamental question which arises on any

consideration of the efficiency of our Courts is whether

the administration of the Courts is in the hands of an

appropriate body. At present, the control and adminis-

tration of our Court system seems to depend on an

uneasy co-operation between the judiciary and the

Department of Justice. The training and experience of a

practising Barrister is not one which confers any great

expertise in the skills of administration, nor is it likely to

bring much familiarity with up-to-date office systems and

technology. The Department of Justice has a remarkably

wide range of activities under its control and it would'be

surprising if there were not direct relationship between the

attention given to certain of those activities and the level

of public interest in or comment on them. Clearly, the

Courts do not fall into a category of high continuing

public interest and the Department's performance in the

provision of Courthouses and of adequate facilities for the

administration of justice has been less than adequate. An

ill-housed system of justice, operating with a creaking

administration, will not do much to encourage respect for

the law and our system of justice in the average citizen.

Other countries have established their Court adminis-

tration on a basis independent from their equivalent of our

Department of Justice, with the apparent result of greater

flexibility in the system and a general improvement in the

administration.

As light appears to be dawning in Government circles

that direct control and operation of public services need

not be in the hands of individual departments (even if the

reasons for such views are more linked to the oboloquy

which attached to the appropriate Minister through the

criticism of the performance of his department), it may

well be appropriate now to take similar steps with the

administration of our Court system and put it on an

independent basis. •