AQO 7976/11-15

Mr Mickey Brady
Sinn Féin
Newry and Armagh

Tabled Date: 26/03/2015
Answered On Date: 21/04/2015
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Justice for an update on his Department's work on statutory time limits in youth justice cases.

Answer:

I plan to introduce statutory time limits in the youth court in October. I wrote to the Justice Committee on 18 March to set out next steps and the timetable for their introduction. I have placed a copy of the timetable in the Library.

My officials have engaged with stakeholder organisations to agree a phased approach to the introduction of the scheme and briefed the Justice Committee on 25 March.

The time limit will initially run from the point a young person is charged with an offence, or in summons cases, from the date the Public Prosecution Service makes a complaint to the court. It will end at the point the first person gives evidence to the court as part of the trial or when a guilty plea is entered.

My officials are currently working with the criminal justice agencies to complete the operational details and finalise draft regulations for the scheme.

This is only the first step towards developing a more rigorous and comprehensive time limit. I believe the end to end time limit envisaged by the Youth Justice Review team should be our ultimate aim and that the criminal justice system should be taking steps to prepare for a time limit with an extended scope and a shorter duration.

As this will require new legislation, my officials will be discussing options with stakeholders over the Summer and will publish a consultation paper in the Autumn.

In the interim, and in order to give greater attention to delay at the early stage of proceedings, I have decided to augment the statutory scheme with an administrative time limit that will cover the early stages of a case. The administrative time limit will be introduced in October with the statutory time limit and will operate until the new legislation needed to deliver a more expansive scheme can be introduced.

I have asked the Criminal Justice Board to monitor closely performance against the statutory and administrative time limits and arrangements will be put in place to track the progress and overall duration of cases.

I also intend to review the operation of the statutory scheme after twelve months to see if the duration of the time limit can be shortened. That will also provide an opportunity to review the range of offences to which the time limit applies together with the use of extensions and the need for exclusions.