Court scheduling practices enabling judicial corruption: senior legal official

The legal figure, who has been involved in some of the country’s highest profile cases in recent years, told Minivan News that it was “quite evident” that the lack of a centralised system for scheduling legal hearings was not only resulting in massive inefficiency, but also allowing for corruption within the country’s court system.

Both the Prosecutor General’s (PG) Office and the country’s judicial watchdog body have maintained they have limited involvement at present in deciding when hearings should be scheduled – with almost all decisions being taken by individual courts.

However, a PG’s Office spokesperson claimed that the Criminal Procedure Code presently sitting within the People’s Majlis was, if passed, anticipated to allow pre-trial hearings to give the prosecution and other parties a greater say in agreeing general timeliness for trials.