THE courts commission will be asking Opposition parties for a commitment to its proposals for a courts' management service if the service is not in place by the next general election.
Yesterday Ms Roisin McDermott of Women's Aid, said she was delighted the Government had accepted the commission's principal recommendation. She represented court users' views as one of the 12 commission members.
They would like the recommendation implemented in the lifespan of this Government she said. "The reason we moved so quickly was to get it on the Government's table before the start of the European presidency."
However, if the measure was not in place by the next general election the commission would try to seek consensus from Opposition parties. "I don't see how the Opposition parties can fail to support it. The need is so great."
She said the proposed courts services was "the only way forward in terms of cost effectiveness and in putting in an acceptable judicial system".
Ms McDermott said the commission looked at similar systems in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Northern Ireland, England and Alaska.
She said the commission had insisted that the new State agency be established by statute "because we had the memory of the civil legal aid Bill and, how that took years to come in.
She said the commission's job now would be to sell the idea and to "bring the judiciary on board". The Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, has effectively handed the report back to the commission, asking it to come up with a way to implement the plan. "I don't think it's our job to write the legislation," Ms McDermott said.
"There was an amazing level of consensus among all the commission members even though there was blood on the floor occasionally."
The commission is working on a report into family law, covering the same problems of delays as well as jurisdiction questions and in camera rulings. It expects to present this to Mrs Owen in July.
The union representing almost half of the civil servants in the courts system has welcomed yesterday's acceptance by the Government.
Ms Ursula Nolan, financial secretary of the Civil and Public Service Union, said she was pleased that the Courts Commission acknowledged the "appalling working conditions of courts staff".
She said a courts service along with the other proposals in the commission's report "would probably solve a lot of the difficulties that have been and are in the courts, especially for staff in clerical grades."
She described the conditions for courts staff as antiquated and inefficient.
