The High Court has directed a District Judge to hear and determine an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to correct charge schedules omitted from four orders returning notice parties for trial. The court extended time for the mandamus application but refused an extension for the DPP’s application to quash the orders.
The orders were made on 23 February 2007. The court said the printed forms later completed in the District Court office had blank schedules, so they did not identify the charges. When the cases came before a Circuit Court judge on 15 May 2007, that judge found there was no jurisdiction to proceed because the returns for trial were ineffective.
The DPP applied for judicial review on 18 July 2008, seeking certiorari to quash the orders or, alternatively, mandamus directing the District Judge to determine an application under the District Court slip rule to fill in the omitted schedules. That application had been adjourned after the notice parties objected that the judge had no authority to act once the cases had been transferred.
Justice Cooke found no good reason to extend the six-month time limit for certiorari. He said the DPP had delayed while considering other defective orders and pursuing correction under the slip rule, and later through indecision and difficulty locating the District Court file. The file was not needed for a certiorari application, the judge said. He also considered quashing inappropriate and unnecessary because the orders reflected decisions correctly pronounced in court.
The court reached a different conclusion on mandamus. Although the three-month limit had passed, the notice parties had opposed the slip-rule application and the District Judge had doubts about her jurisdiction. The later delay was not sufficiently culpable to refuse an extension, the judge held.
Justice Cooke concluded that the blank schedules resulted from an administrative or ministerial failure to record the District Judge’s decision accurately, rather than an error in the judicial decision itself. He rejected the argument that the District Judge was functus officio, finding that the defective returns had not effectively transferred the cases and that the slip rule could be used to correct accidental omissions.
The court granted the extension and ordered the District Judge to hear and determine the DPP’s slip-rule application. It did not itself complete the schedules or decide that application.