The time courts take to deal with appeals in serious criminal cases such as murder and rape has increased by an average of more than four months, according to official statistics released on Tuesday.
It took 513 days for the average appeal in the most serious cases to be resolved in 2008/09, compared with 382 days in 2007/08.
The number of appeals resolved in criminal courts has fallen overall in the past year according to the Government statistics.
A total of 2,191 criminal appeals against conviction, sentence or both were dealt with in 2008-09. This is down from 2,254 in 2007-08 and compares with 3,414 in 1999-00, a drop of just over a third (36%).
About three-quarters of the cases (78%) related to sentence only.
The average time taken by a court to process a criminal appeal increased from 151 to 162 days. The majority (79%) of appeals in 2008-09 were concluded within six months.
The total of 2,191 appeals in courts last year is about 2% of the 110,000 people convicted of a crime the previous year.
About half - 53% - of the total number of appeals concluded in 2008-09 were refused at a screening stage or abandoned. This rate is down 8% from 2007-08.
Labour's justice spokesman Richard Baker said the longer wait for appeals is damaging the Scottish legal system.
He said: "Kenny MacAskill has the overall responsibility for the smooth running of Scottish courts and it appears that he is failing. It is important that criminal appeals are dealt with in a timely fashion.
"Every day in court is costing the taxpayers money in legal aid and every day of delay adds to the cost to the public. Mr MacAskill needs to find out what is going wrong on his watch and sort it out quickly."
Last updated: 03 November 2009, 11:59
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