Dismay in legal world as court sitting limited to just two hours
JUDGES have begun limiting sittings to just two hours after new advice on meetings in enclosed spaces came to light.
The move has been taken as a precautionary measure while further clarity is being sought, but has caused consternation in legal circles.
Court business has been hugely curtailed by the Covid19 pandemic and a time limit on sittings is set to cause even further disruption.
Law Society director general Ken Murphy said the announcement was “very surprising” and represented “a disappointing setback to the valiant efforts by the Courts Service to reopen the courts in the public interest”.
The decision was taken by senior judges yesterday after the Dáil’s Covid-19 committee was advised on Tuesday that if someone spends more than two hours in an enclosed space with someone else they are considered a contact for public health purposes.
The advice received was that if someone develops Covid-19 in the two days after a hearing lasting two hours or more, everyone else there for that period would be advised to self-isolate for 14 days.
At his briefing later that day, the chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said the guidance was that no two people should spend a cumulative period of more than two hours in the same room in any 24-hour period. He said this was not a hard and fast rule for all sectors and factors such as ventilation, room size, and the type of the work being done were relevant.
The Courts Service and the judiciary were not previously made aware of this advice and it was not factored into their plans to increase the number of physical court hearings, which kicked in on Monday.
In a statement, the presidents of the five courts said they had become aware of the health advice given to the Houses of the Oireachtas.
“The Courts Service was unaware, until the matter became public [on Tuesday], of what appears to be additional safety considerations beyond those already published,” it said.
The Courts Service has now sought urgent further advice on the issue as it “clearly has the potential to affect the conduct of court hearings”.
“Pending receipt of such additional advices the court presidents have determined that all court sittings will last for no more than two hours in each day,” the statement said.
This decision does not impact on remote hearings.
The development is a considerable setback to plans to reopen the courts. Hearings were pared back to urgent matters and ongoing trials in March, with huge swathes of cases being adjourned due to fears about the potential transmission of the virus.
But the range of matters being dealt with was expanded last Monday and there are also plans for Circuit Court criminal trials to resume in September.
Mr Murphy said it was “bordering on bizarre” the advice was being given for the first time more that two months into the crisis where public health advice, up to then, had been “admirably clear”.
“The Dáil has frequently sat for periods well in excess of two hours during the crisis oblivious to this apparently authoritative health advice. Businesses and workplaces of all kinds have been kept by the Department of Health in ignorance of this advice,” Mr Murphy said.