The Supreme Court's case backlog is clearing according to the Director of the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP), however, Bermuda's Chief Justice said the amount of time prisoners have to wait on remand to get a trial date still needed to be halved.

There were 77 new indictments in 2005 and a backlog of 51 cases brought forward from 2004, DPP Vinette Graham Allen said claimed, making a total of 128 cases the DPP needed to try.

"We have disposed of 81 cases so far and approximately 46 cases going forward as a backlog," Mrs. Graham Allen said.

In 2004, the DPP had 97 new indictments and disposed of a total of 106 cases, she said.

She added there was still one outstanding trial and two other outstanding matters to be completed before a final tally of the DPP's work for 2005 could be made.

Chief Justice Richard Ground gave his approval, however, the DPP Director conceded it could still do much better.

"At least it's not growing," Mr. Justice Ground said. "I think it is a considerable achievement. I note continued cooperation in listing trials. As we go into the new year, I hope the pace picks up again and will not slow down as it did in the latter part of this year."

But Mr. Justice Ground said the waiting time for prisoners on remand remained twice as long as was reasonable.

"It still takes six months to get a trial date. This is much better than it was, but I'd like to get it down to three. I think that is a reasonable target," Mr. Justice Ground said. "It's good to see things are better than they were a few years ago."

Back-to-back cases and setting down two trials for the same time will continue in 2006, he said.

He said the number of defence lawyers had grown in 2005 with the addition of Mr. Richardson, former-Magistrate Edward King and former-Crown counsel Shade Subair to the bar.

The Chief Justice said as legal aid counsel, Ms Subair had enabled un-represented defendants to get their day in court.

"I would like to see more young Bermudian doing cases themselves," he said.

Senior Crown counsels should stick to serious, or more difficult cases, he said, and less serious cases be given to their juniors.

Director Graham Allen said the DPP's junior prosecutors ? who had so far tagged along with their seniors like Carrington Mahoney and consultant Kulandra Ratneser in trials ? will soon have sole conduct of criminal trials from April 2006.

And in a rare moment of affability between judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers, the DPP Director said she could not have cleared ten percent of the backlog without the input of certain defence counsel who got most of their clients to plead guilty at arraignments.

"I want to say that Elizabeth Christopher was outstanding in assaying the backlog, and to a lessor degree, because of his recent arrival, Charles Richardson," Mrs. Graham Allen said to the two lawyers who stayed behind after yesterday's arraignments session.

When asked, Ms Christopher said a faster disclosure of information between the DPP and defence would benefit the court.

The Chief Justice agreed and welcomed a new forum where lawyers could sit down and thrash out administrative issues, prior to a trial's commencement.

Although he still had doubts about the utility of pretrial hearings, he welcomed a pretrial framework being set in the statutes so that all parties could know what they were working with.