California Government Code 68603 – (a) The Judicial Council shall adopt standards of timely …
(a) The Judicial Council shall adopt standards of timely disposition for the processing and disposition of civil and criminal actions. The standards shall be guidelines by which the progress of litigation in the superior court of every county may be measured. In establishing these standards, the Judicial Council shall be guided by the principles that litigation, from commencement to resolution, should require only that time reasonably necessary for pleadings, discovery, preparation, and court events, and that any additional elapsed time is delay and should be eliminated.
(b) The Judicial Council may adopt the standards of timely disposition adopted by the National Conference of State Trial Judges and the American Bar Association or may adopt different standards, but in the latter event shall specify reasons for approval of any standard which permits greater elapsed time for the resolution of litigation than that provided in the standards of the National Conference of State Trial Judges.
Terms Used In California Government Code 68603
- County: includes city and county. See California Government Code 19
- Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
- Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
- Pleadings: Written statements of the parties in a civil case of their positions. In the federal courts, the principal pleadings are the complaint and the answer.
- State: means the State of California, unless applied to the different parts of the United States. See California Government Code 18
- Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
(c) The Judicial Council shall adopt rules effective July 1, 1991, to be used by all delay reduction courts, establishing a case differentiation classification system based on the relative complexity of cases. The rules shall provide longer periods for the timely disposition of more complex cases. The rules may provide a presumption that all cases, when filed, shall be classified in the least complex category.
(Repealed and added by Stats. 1990, Ch. 1232, Sec. 3.)