According to information provided by the Supreme Court:
- The Supreme Constitutional Court will hear the case:
- All review appeals, i.e. appeals relating to administrative law, filed before 31.12.2018, i.e. 292
- All review appeals, again of administrative law, against a decision of a Judge of the Supreme Court, i.e. 85.
Therefore, the SJC will be tasked to hear a total of 377 appeals.
- The Supreme Court will hear:
- All civil appeals filed as of January 31, 2017, i.e., 1557
- All civil appeals involving privilege warrants, i.e., 34.
Therefore, the Court of Appeals
- The Court of Appeals will hear a total of 1591 cases:
- All civil appeals filed since 1.1.2018, i.e. 2158
- All criminal appeals, i.e. 233
- All review appeals filed since 1.1.2019 - a total of 688 (of which 582 are against a decision of a Judge of the Administrative Court) + 106 (against a decision of a Judge of the Administrative Court of International Protection)
- The civil applications (relating to primary jurisdiction of privilege orders), i.e. 70.
Therefore, the Court of Appeal will be responsible for hearing a total of 3149 cases.
The above statistics refer to cases registered up to 18/4/2022.
- With regard to the projected time for adjudication of cases, it is expected that the cases will be disposed of by the Supreme Constitutional Court, as provided for in the bills, in about two years and by the High Court in about three years. While currently, we know that the time to hear an appeal is 7 years.
- And in the Court of Appeal, which is composed of 16 judges, we could estimate about the same length of time to hear an appeal.
- It should not be lost on us, however, that what counts and supports the bills and the structure they propose, is that they also achieve the introduction of checks and balances that do not exist today, flexibility and the strengthening of the functionality of the highest level, which currently concentrates excessive powers and duties, while through specialization the quality of justice will be enhanced.
- Since the data as given to us do not lead to safe conclusions, but are limited to reasonable cases, since they are based on the date and type of jurisdiction and not on the seriousness of the case which is directly related to the time of adjudication, I conclude that we must trust the Supreme Court that, as it currently does with the backlog in the lower courts, it will intervene with administrative cuts and policies and create a special project that runs in parallel so that new cases are not affected. This is something that is being done at this stage in the District Courts, where the situation is checked and assessed and where problems are observed, solutions are sought so that the whole project can proceed. In such a case there will be full support from the Ministry of PPD.
(NΓ)
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