Court of Appeal leads to rise in legal fees, says DPP

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has said rising fees for legal counsel last year was partly due to the establishment of the Court of Appeal, now in its third year of operation.

Payments to barristers employed by the State rose from €13.4 million in 2014 to slightly over €14 million last year, or an average of €38,400 per day in prosecuting criminal trials.

The DPP’s annual report, published on Wednesday, showed the highest proportion of fees was paid with regard to Circuit Court cases (€7.1 million). Salaries and wages for DPP staff were just over €12 million.

"Expenditure on counsel's fees rose...due partly to lengthy trials but also due to the significant increase in cases processed during the first full year of operation of the Court of Appeal," wrote DPP Claire Loftus in her foreword.

The Court of Appeal was established in October, 2014 to assume the appellant role of the Supreme Court in civil matters and the Court of Criminal Appeal in criminal trials.

Since hearing its first case in November, 2014, the court has dealt with 560 cases, the vast majority of which (316) regard the severity of sentence. There were 73 DPP appeals.

It is the first annual report dealing with the EU directive on victims’ rights which came into effect in November last year, giving people the right, among others, to request reasons for non-prosecutions.

A total of 333 such requests had been received by the end of June this year. There were a further 135 requests for a review of decisions not to prosecute.

Reasons for non-prosecutions were supplied in 216 cases and declined in 68. Some would have been refused where the reasons were deemed potentially prejudicial to a future court case.

Overall for 2015, the director notes the number of prosecution files generally continued to increase in the three year period to 2015 with 68 per cent being directed on within one month and almost 90 per cent within three months.

The trend in prosecutorial decisions has remained more or less constant over the last three years. A decision not to prosecute has held between 41 and 45 per cent; a direction to prosecute on indictment (Circuit Court or higher) has remained around 27 per cent while summary disposal (District Court) has been between 28 and 30 per cent.

In the majority of cases considered unsuitable for prosecution, it is down to a determination of insufficient evidence.

In relation to trials by indictment in 2014, there was a 66 per cent conviction rate, with 4 per cent acquittals and a further 27 per cent not yet heard.

Of the total finalised cases in the circuit court for 2014, there was a 100 per cent success rate in prosecutions of fatal offences (including murder and manslaughter) as compared to 71 per cent in 2013 and 80 per cent in 2012, although there were fewer trials.

In 2015, the High Court confiscated €3.4 million worth of criminal assets.

The DPP may apply to the High Court for freezing orders where someone is charged, or about to be charged, with an indictable offence.

"The freezing order can cover all property identified both in Ireland or abroad belonging to the accused person," the report explains.

“Freezing orders are designed to prevent the dissipation of assets prior to a confiscation inquiry being conducted by the trial court if the accused is convicted on indictment of the offence charged.”

The High Court issued 92 European Arrest Warrants last year, almost twice as many as in 2014 (48) and 2013 (50). However, while the figure do not necessarily correspond on a year-by-year basis, the number of people surrendered to Irish authorities from such warrants has been falling, from 39 in 2013 to 31 in 2014 and to 17 last year.

Further afield, gardai applied for 10 extradition warrants from countries outside of the EU last year. Australia was the most common with half of those applications while there were two for the US and one each for South Africa, Jersey and Brazil.