Court case documents

I refer to the item under the heading Six Criminal Court Cases Put Off (October 26) where it was reported that "the Attorney General failed to send the case documents back to court in time for the sittings".

My office did not "fail" to send the documents in time. According to law, the Attorney General is allowed a period of one month from the date of receipt of the record of the case in order to return the record to the court. In all the cases referred to by the court, the record was referred back to the court within the period allowed by law and, therefore, in time.

It was the court which failed to take into account the time allowed to the Attorney General for the return of the record when fixing the date of the hearing.

In fact, the record was with the Court by 1.30 p.m. on the same date of the hearing but all the cases in question had already been put off.

Better case management would have avoided the situation which arose.