THE eight new judges due to be, appointed to the circuit courts could be in place before the end of this law term.
The recommendations of the Judicial Appointments Commission will be sent to the Government within the next few days, the Irish Times has learned.
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, said she would consider them as soon as she received them and submit the matter to Government. If it acts immediately on the recommendations, the new judges could be in, place for the July sittings.
Some of these new judges will eventually be dealing with applications under the divorce legislation. However, lawyers fear there will not be enough to deal with the deluge of applications expected when the Divorce Bill becomes law.
There are eight vacancies on the Circuit Court bench, the seven additional judges the Government decided to appoint to deal with the huge backlog of cases and the replacement for Judge Michael, Menart, who has been appointed to the High Court.
The Judicial Appointments Commission was set up under the Courts and Courts Officers Act, passed late last year, to process applications to the bench and make recommendations to the Government. The Act also allowed, for the first time, solicitors to apply to become judges of the Circuit Court. Before that the Government made appointments directly, on the basis of informal soundings, from the ranks of the bar.
These new appointments are intended to alleviate the overcrowding of the court lists. According to the new journal of the Bar Council The Bar Review, 51 out of 64 cases involving murder and rape before the Central Criminal Court were adjourned last month with out a trial date being fixed.
On the civil side, there is a delay of up to three years for personal injuries cases in the High Court in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway, and of similar periods in the circuit courts.
This pressure will be greatly increased by the introduction of divorce, likely to be on the salute" books early next year. There will be a delay of three months between the President signing the Act and it coming into operation.
There are likely to be at least 10,000 divorce applications made immediately the legislation comes into effect, according to Mr James Nugent SC, chairman of the Bar Council. "A significant number of people who have judicial separations will want to complete the process," he said. This would swamp the courts, even with the new judicial appointments.
There are about 3,000 applications annually for judicial separations. At the moment people who want a separation, and who have done all the preliminary work, have to wait until next November just to get a date for their case to be heard. That date, will not be, before the following November he said.
"Then frequently when they have to come to court the case isn't reached. In human terms it's a dreadful situation," he said. "A system meant to be alleviating people's problems is adding to them.