Listing 74 matters in a single day: time budget and priority
A single Bench has 74 matters listed for tomorrow: 9 part-heard matters, 12 final-hearing matters, 28 motions and 25 admission matters. From the past month's disposal data the Registrar's office estimates 10 minutes for an average part-heard matter (one of the nine is expected to take 30 minutes), 18 minutes for a final-hearing matter, 5 minutes for a motion (four of the motions are urgent and will take 7 minutes each) and 4 minutes for an admission matter. The court sits from 10:30 to 13:15 and from 14:15 to 16:30. Fifteen minutes at the start of the day must be reserved for mentions, and the Registrar's practice is to keep a 10-minute cushion at the end of the day for a matter that overruns. Two senior counsel have stated that they are available only between 14:15 and 15:00, and both have part-heard matters among the nine.
1. Compute the total court time the list requires and the proportion of it the court can actually reach in one day.
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Court time available: 10:30 to 13:15 is 165 minutes; 14:15 to 16:30 is 135 minutes; total 300 minutes. Less 15 minutes for mentions and the 10-minute cushion, the usable time is 275 minutes.
Requirement: part-heard 9 x 10 = 90, plus 20 minutes extra for the one estimated at 30 instead of 10, giving 110. Motions 28 x 5 = 140, plus 4 x 2 = 8 for the urgent ones, giving 148. Final-hearing 12 x 18 = 216. Admission 25 x 4 = 100. Total 110 + 148 + 216 + 100 = 574 minutes.
Utilisation is 275/574, about 48 per cent. The list for one day is thus nearly double the court's capacity, and it is arithmetically certain that roughly half the matters cannot be reached - which is why the order of listing, and not the number of items, is the real decision. The Bench should be informed of the excess so that the final-hearing matters are spread over the week instead of being called and adjourned.
2. Propose the order of listing and justify it; state how many admission matters can be reached if all part-heard matters and all motions are taken.
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Order: mentions (15 minutes), then the nine part-heard matters, then the motions with the four urgent ones at the head of that block, then as many admission matters as time permits, and the final-hearing matters not at all. Part-heard matters go first because evidence once begun should continue without a break, and counsel's recollection and the witness's availability both decay; they also cannot be adjourned without recording reasons. Motions come next because they carry interim protection and urgent ones cannot wait. Admissions are short and can be picked up in whatever time is left, and final hearings, being the longest items, are the proper candidates for re-listing.
Arithmetic: 110 + 148 = 258 minutes. Add the 15-minute mentions block = 273 minutes of the 300; with the 10-minute cushion, 17 minutes remain, which allows 4 admission matters at 4 minutes each. Reaching all 25 admissions and the final hearings is impossible on these estimates.
Constraint: the two senior counsel are free only from 14:15 to 15:00, so their part-heard matters must be positioned to fall in that window, which means the morning must absorb the mentions and at least seven of the part-heard matters without drift.
3. The court rises 20 minutes before 16:30 and three motions are passed over. Working from your proposed order, when does the last listed matter finish, and what is the revised figure for admissions?
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Revised capacity: 16:30 less 20 minutes is 16:10, so the cushion disappears and the day yields 300 - 20 = 280 minutes of sitting, less 15 for mentions, i.e. 265 minutes of working time.
Clock computation on the proposed order: 10:30 + 15 = 10:45; part-heard 110 minutes ends at 12:35. The morning session ends at 13:15, leaving 40 minutes, which takes 8 motions of 5 minutes. After lunch, 20 motions remain (28 less 8), but 3 are passed over, so 17 are heard: 85 minutes from 14:15 to 15:40. Time left to 16:10 is 30 minutes, which accommodates 7 admission matters at 4 minutes each (28 minutes), ending at 16:08.
Revised figures: 9 part-heard, 25 motions heard or passed over, and 7 admissions, instead of 4. The point of the exercise is that an overrun or an early rising does not merely truncate the tail of the list - because motions and admissions have different lengths, the number actually reached moves in a way that cannot be guessed, and the court officer must recompute rather than assume.