An ACT Supreme Court trial has been shifted to NSW as the arrival of an extra full-time judge to hear cases and a shortage of jury courtrooms continued to put pressure on the Civic building as it awaited expansion.
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The extensive revamp of the ageing Knowles Place court complex is set to add two new jury courtrooms to the Supreme Court, boosting the total number to five.
While construction on the $150 million precinct facelift is under way, those new courtrooms aren't set to be ready until early next year.
The court's directions list on Wednesday was told a five-day criminal jury trial for an ACT matter had been moved to Queanbeyan Court House next week.
The court heard jurors would be empanelled in the ACT before they travelled across the border.
Chief Justice Helen Murrell's strategy of intensively scheduling trials during central criminal listing, or "blitz", periods significantly slashed the court's chronic backlog of cases in recent years as the building's capacity remained the same.
But a long-standing shortage of jury courtrooms - there are only three in the ACT - had been exacerbated by the arrival of a long-awaited fifth resident judge appointed to ease workload pressures on the existing judges last year.
A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay said next week's trial was the only ACT matter scheduled to be heard in Queanbeyan at this stage, under an agreement with the NSW Department of Justice.
"The Queanbeyan trial will allow ACT Law Courts and Tribunal to assess the suitability of the arrangement in the event that one of the three existing jury courtrooms is committed to a long-running trial and another jury courtroom is required."
The spokeswoman said the defendant on trial was on bail so did not require transport and any safety risks had been assessed.
Prosecutors, Legal Aid ACT and the accused's defence team had been consulted about the move.
It is understood use of the Queanbeyan court had been previously flagged as a potential option with members of the legal fraternity.
Registrar Annie Glover said the availability of the Queanbeyan courtroom had enabled a greater degree of flexibility in listing and maximised the court's capacity to deal with the substantial number of criminal trials listed for next week.
The NSW court could also be used in the second half of the year, with David Eastman's planned six-month retrial for the 1989 shooting death of police chief Colin Winchester set to tie up one jury courtroom from July.
The new court complex is expected to meet the capital's needs for the next 50 years.
