Waiting time for high court trials doubles due to Covid restrictions
The average waiting period for high court trials has doubled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
New figures from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service shows the average waiting period for high court trials hasdoubledfromasix-month wait in pre-pandemic levels to 12 months.
However, the introduction of remote jury centres allowed 29 high court evidence-led trials to be heard in December, which is higher than both the two previous years of 26 in 2019 and 23 in 2018.
The remote jury centres were extended across Scotland to restart sheriff court jury trials and 11 evidence
led trials started in Lothian and Borders and Glasgow and Strathkelvin. Other areas will follow in the early part of 2021.
Due to coronavirus, evidence-led summary trials were just 69 per cent of the average monthly pre-covid levels while the overall number of new cases registered in courts was just 67 per cent of the pre-pandemic monthly levels.
However, courts concluded 15,643 cases in the second quarter of 2020/21, which was more than four times the number of cases concluded in the first quarter.
Davidfraser,executivedirector of court operations, said: "Non-custody and non-priority summary trials due to call between January 12 and February 26 are adjourned.
"While this is necessary to support the public health response to Covid-19, we anticipate that this will increase the summary trial backlog by around 3,000 to 4,300 cases.
"Solemn business continues to be prioritised.”