DEFENDANTS pleading not guilty to charges at Letterkenny District Court will have to wait over a year to have their cases heard.
At Monday’s sitting of the local court several contested matters were adjourned into next May.
The Courts Service said the backlog was due to Covid restrictions which have severely hampered normal judicial proceedings.
A spokesperson told the Donegal News there is a possibility contests will be rescheduled for later this year. But as it stands cases are being listed for May 19 2022.
“There are two hearing days each month in Letterkenny – on the first Thursday and third Thursday,” said the Courts Service.
“During Covid restrictions many cases continued and were resolved but a number of contested cases with civilian witnesses have had to be adjourned. For these cases we are now listing a year in advance to May 2022 for any new hearings.
“We can facilitate extra sittings if judicial resources allow dates to be assigned. A new call-over of cases already adjourned out into next year could be facilitated with a view to reassigning a new earlier date if possible.”
The Courts Service said during the pandemic it has had to prioritise urgent, custody and family law matters. There have however been 16,000 court to prison links and over 4,500 virtual court hearings over the past 14 months.
Physical court hearings have also continued to deal with more urgent matters and cases without civilian witnesses. Due to limitations on what business can be conducted though a bottleneck has become unavoidable.
“Following 16 months of Covid restrictions there are inevitable delays and it will take time to work through significant backlogs while operating under capacity and scheduling constraints and also rigorously following public health guidelines to keep all court users safe,” said the Courts Service.
Monday’s court sitting ran until 7.30pm. Normally cases would be heard up until 5.30pm.
In a further manifestation of the pressure local courts are facing, this week’s Letterkenny District Court ran until 7.30pm – one of the longest sittings in recent history.
Well in excess of 100 cases were listed with murmurings of further long days to come.
The Courts Service said Monday’s proceedings were held up by one particular case but admitted that it was a “busy list”.
“Monday’s court in Donegal court ran late for a very specific reason.
“The court had to hear a civil case that had previously only been part-heard. This took an hour in an already busy list.
“It is very unusual to have a court sitting this late. The court normally finishes before 5pm,” the Courts Service added.
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