Preliminary criminal hearings ‘most important’ to improving courts efficiency
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Claire Loftus
The introduction of preliminary hearings is the “most important thing” that would help the Irish criminal courts work more efficiently, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has said.
Claire Loftus made the remarks in an interview featured in the latest edition of the Bar Review, the monthly magazine of The Bar of Ireland.
In 2014, the Government set out plans for pre-trial procedures that would allow for “all contentious matters concerning the process of the trial and the evidence to be admitted” to be “settled before a jury is empanelled”.
The procedures would be introduced through the Criminal Procedures Bill, which is still pending.
Ms Loftus told the Bar Review: “I’ve been saying since I was appointed that this was the most important thing, in my view, that would help the system work more efficiently.
“I think in everybody’s interests, but particularly in victims’ interests, it would make an awful lot of sense.”
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