Reducing delay
Reducing unnecessary delay and speeding up the justice process is crucial to improving victims’ experience of the justice system and reducing attrition.
While there is more work to be done, progress is being made, including:
- The first stage of the NI Criminal Justice (Committal Reform) Act was implemented on 17 October 2022. The new committal process means the use of oral evidence during committal proceedings in the Magistrates’ Court for new cases was abolished. This change simplifies the committal process, reduces costs and delay, which benefits both victims and witnesses and the accused. The Department is working with criminal justice partners to take forward the second phase of committal reform (‘direct committal’), which aims to remove the traditional committal process entirely for the most serious offences, with the majority of cases being directly transferred to the Crown Court at the first court appearance in the Magistrates’ court.
- Work has progressed with the Indictable Cases Process (ICP) for serious sexual offence cases, Following the Gillen Review, the PPS and PSNI made several significant changes to their case processing arrangements in line with the ICP principles. These changes are currently being documented and combined into one process. This work is ongoing with the Serious Sexual Offences Process (SSOP) part of the wider Speeding Up Justice Programme of Work looking at early engagement. This work is ongoing.
- Case Progression Officers are in place in all Crown Court venues and are working to ensure that all procedural or administrative matters in relation to Crown court cases are being progressed by the relevant agencies and that, as far as possible, any blockages or impediments to effective case progression are addressed.