Courts around Australia face huge backlog of criminal cases, report finds

Courts across Australia are facing a growing backlog of criminal cases, with hundreds taking longer than a year to process.

Nearly a quarter of pending cases in New South Wales’s supreme and district courts – other than appeals – are older than 12 months, according to a Productivity Commission report released on Tuesday.

That compares to a rate of 18% in 2014-15, 19% in 2013-14 and 11% in 2012-13.

As of June 30 last year, the state had 4,192 matters – 1,017 of which had not been completed inside a year.

In Tasmania, almost 29% of criminal cases were older than 12 months, followed by South Australia (25.5%) and the ACT (23.1%).

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