The Northern Territory crime rate is creating a massive court backlog

Darwin courts have been forced to hold ‘super directions hearing’ as judges, lawyers and staff struggle to meet the pace of new criminal cases.

NT courts are unable to keep up with the Territory’s crime rate. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Territory courts are groaning under the pressure to keep up with the crime rate, with accused criminals waiting a year to have their day in court.

Chief Judge Elizabeth Morris presided over the “super directions hearing list” on Tuesday to assign Darwin Local Court dates well into the 2023 calendar.

An NT Court spokeswoman said the call-over list assigned dates for about 85 people on bail still waiting to resolve their cases.

Ms Morris started with cases that had been stuck in the court system for two years, handing out dates to matters going back to 2020.

Judge Elizabeth Morris will hold a super directions hearing. Picture: Che Chorley

Territorians on bail are waiting about 11 months for contested hearing dates, according to the spokeswman.

She said there was a three-month wait for those on remand in prison.

The court said the backlog was caused by the high volumes of cases combined with the limited resources of judges, court staff, prosecutors and defence.

“With increasing numbers of matters coming through the courts, the available listing dates has stretched into the future,” the spokeswoman said.

“Increasing listings and lodgements of matters, without an increase in resources will necessarily extend the time period that people can have their matters finalised.”

The spokeswoman said there were multiple reasons for the growing number of cases.

“A backlog suggests that there was a single impediment, which could be ‘cleared’ once the impediment was removed, for example a Covid shutdown,” she said.

“The current lengthy adjournment time is due rather to the number of cases to be dealt with within existing resources.”

It comes just five months after a similar hearing, where more than 500 cases were listed for a single day in Darwin Local Court.

At the time the courts said the directions hearing call-over was an extremely unusual measure that “has not been (used) in recent times”.

Staffing issues have been highlighted on both sides of the bench, with the NT Legal Aid Commission and Director of Public Prosecution also suffering resource challenges.

“The challenges of attracting and retaining staff are greater than they have been before,” the latest NTLAC annual report said.

The courts spokeswoman said the backlog was caused by the high volumes of cases combined with the limited resources of judges, court staff, prosecutors and defence. Picture: Glenn Campbell

“All areas of the organisation have been affected by staff shortages on a rolling basis as a result of contracting Covid-19 or being close contacts.”

The DPP annual report said it was a “challenging and onerous” year due to low staffing levels and resourcing concerns.

The latest report said Darwin had a high staff turnover, while Alice Springs suffered “significant staffing issues due to departures’’.

To manage the shortfall, the DPP said it sent briefing work usually done by prosecutors to external counsel, locums were used to backfill vacant positions and staff were seconded from other agencies.

The court spokeswoman said the DPP was given extra resources to employ more prosecution staff to “allow an extra hearing per day to be listed on some days”.

Originally published as The Northern Territory crime rate is creating a massive court backlog