Fewer murder cases show rate is falling - McDowell

The Minister for Justice has said it would be "naive" to interpret a fall in the number of rape cases reaching the courts as a reduction in rape offences, but the drop in murder cases before the courts last year reflected the State's falling murder rate, he said.

"The great majority of murders end up in detection and somebody is accused. The drop in the murder \ does reflect what's happening out there and that is that the homicide rate in Ireland has been going down in recent years.

"In relation to other offences, such as rape, it would be naive to assume that the rate of prosecutions has anything to do with the rate of incidents of the offence because only a small fraction of reported rapes actually end up in prosecutions. The reasons for that are quite complex."

Last year, almost €26 million in legal costs were allowed by the taxing master, up from €16 million in 2002. Mr McDowell said "legal costs and the manner in which they are calculated" would be examined by his Department in the second half of this year.

"I'd like there to be much more transparency, much more price competition among lawyers, downward pressure on the level of fees. Some fees, I think, are way beyond the possibility of ordinary people to afford litigation."

Also yesterday at the launch of the Courts Service annual report for 2003, Mrs Justice Denham, chairwoman of the Courts Service, urged the Government to review the resources courts need, particularly the appointment of judges. She said the number and case load of judges in Ireland did not compare favourably with other European and common law countries.

"The work of judges has grown, not only in the increasing number of cases dealt with and their growing complexity, but also because of the necessity of case management. An example may be given by one of the first modern practices adopted some years ago in the Supreme Court.

"Originally the transcript of a trial was read to the Supreme Court on the appeal. This took up a considerable amount of court time. That transcript is now read in advance by the judges, together with the other papers of the case."

She added many other cases could not function if judges did not read relevant paperwork in advance, "but the time in which judges do such work should be during the day, on days when they are not listed for court work, and not at night or over the weekend.

"For the future it would be good practice to have written analysis of the judicial resources required in each new piece of legislation. Work needs to be done on this matter if we are not always to be playing catch up."

Mrs Justice Denham, who is also a Supreme Court judge, added the courts had had a busy year in 2003. There had been a 50 per cent rise in written judgments in the High Court since 2001. Fatal and personal injuries cases had risen in 2001-03 by 87 per cent. The Central Criminal Court had dealt with 81 per cent more murders in 2003 compared with two years previously. The Circuit Court and District Court had also seen an increase in cases.