The ACT Director of Public Prosecutions launched a bid to abandon hearings for nearly 30 cases in the Magistrates Court before the end of the year, arguing a chronic lack of resources meant it didn't have enough prosecutors to run the matters.
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DPP assistant director Shane Drumgold told Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker his office would not be ready to prosecute the matters as a looming intensive listing period in the lower court clashed with a Supreme Court trial blitz and it couldn't staff both.
Mr Drumgold applied for about 27 hearings in late November and early December to be vacated due to a lack of resources when he appeared in court for a listing hearing on Thursday. He asked for those cases to be adjourned to a later date.
However, Ms Walker knocked back each application and said the hearings should go ahead as planned despite the prosecution's resource shortage.
"Unfortunately if the court was to respond to various resourcing issues of parties, matters would never proceed expeditiously," she said.
The hearing highlighted concerns over staffing pressures at the DPP, weeks after its director Jon White, SC, again used his annual report to point to "critical resource issues" and urged the government to bolster the office's funding.
Supreme Court trials are intensively listed during a six week period - known in the legal profession as the "blitzes" - every few months under reforms introduced several years ago designed to clear its extensive backlog of cases.
Concerns that backlog was shifting to the lower court prompted it to stop a policy of scheduling hearings outside of blitz periods in the higher court after Ms Walker said the arrangement was "unsustainable".
The Magistrates Court has since moved to a similar system of block listing hearings, prompting Mr White to warn in his report that his already-stretched prosecutors could not meet the demands of both courts with existing resources.
"It is not just this office that will have difficulties – the Legal Aid office and private defence practitioners will also be stretched beyond breaking point if both intensive listing periods take place at once," he said.
"It is hoped that sanity will prevail and that the Magistrates Court is able to coordinate its block listing hearings with the Supreme Court listings. If not, then clearly priority will have to be given to the Supreme Court."
Fifty matters set to be heard between November 27 and December 8 were mentioned in Thursday's list to determine which cases would be ready to proceed.
Mr Drumgold said cases that could not be allocated a prosecutor were listed for the final two weeks of the six-week intensive listing periods in both courts. They were among about 245 matters set to be prosecuted in the lower court during that time.
"We have identified 27 matters we are simply not able to allocate prosecutors to."
In one of the first cases mentioned, Mr Drumgold said he didn't have a prosecutor for a matter the court heard could likely be resolved without a hearing if the defence lawyer was able to make representations to the DPP.
"I would need a prosecutor to consider that issue," Mr Drumgold said, before pointing out he didn't have a staff member to allocate to the matter.
"This is probably a theme that is going to continue."
Ms Walker was not satisfied a resource shortage was a valid reason the cases should be delayed and suggested the DPP and court instead look at some "practical ways" to manage the problem.
She hoped the listing hearing would free up court time and prosecutors, who could then be reallocated.
"Hopefully after a recount of matters there might be some movement there," she said.
