Background: - Mental health courts are special courts which are supposed to solve problem ofrnindividuals with mental illness who are involved in criminal justice system. The identification,rnassessment, processing and treatment of these mentally ill offenders are the responsibility ofrnforensic psychiatric services in collaboration with the justice system and other legal agencies.rnForensic psychiatric services in Ethiopia has been solely provided by Amanuel Hospital for thernentire country for many years, but recently mental health court is established to shorten thernwaiting time of the mentally ill offenders who face problem with legal system but there has notrnbeen a systematic study conducted to see how effective the service is going on. Though there arernmany issues in mental health court knowing the delay, the population which the court serves andrnthe referral process should be one of the important issues. rnObjective: - The main objective of this research was describing socio demographicrncharacteristics of mentally ill offenders who are involved at the mental health court, thernawareness of first instant courts about the service, waiting time for evaluation, referral process,rndiagnosis and charge facing of mental health court. rnMethods: - A retrospective study was conducted involving those who were assessed at MHCrnfrom January 01/2017 till June 30/2018 .Data extraction sheet were used to collect informationrnfor the study. All cases assessed by the forensic case team during the study period were includedrnin the study. The data sheets were coded and data entry, cleaning and analysis were done usingrnthe Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.rnResults: - Sixty five cases were included in the study. Of these, 80% were males. The mean agernof the cases was 32.3 years and Most of the offenders (56.9%) were single. Regardingrnemployment status majority participants (56.9%) were unemployed. In terms of sub-city, 20rn(30.8%) were from Lideta, 15 (23.1%) from Addis Ketema, 9 (13.8%) from Kolfe Keranyo 7rn(10.8 %) from Yeka, 6 (9.2%) from Nifas silk lafto, 5 (7.7 %) from Kirkos, 3 (4.6%) from Aradarnand no cases were reported from the rest sub-city. The majority of the claim (53.8%) raised byrnthe offenders themselves. Out of the total cases (23%) got a psychiatric diagnosis. Of theserndiagnosed with schizophrenia were in (10.8 %) of cases, diagnosis of bipolar I disorder (7.7%) rn9rnand (12.3%) had reported epilepsy. Regarding criminal responsibility and fitness to stand trial,rn(90.8 %) were found fit to stand trial of cases and the majority of cases (76.9%) found to berncriminal responsible. Of all cases only (9.2 %) of cases were unfit to stand trial and notrncriminally responsible. The mean time took to adjudicate the case were126 days (4.2 months).rnThe time took to adjudicate the case of criminal irresponsible were 156 days (5.2 months)rnwhereas the time took to adjudicate the case of criminal responsible were 117 days (3.9 months).rnAnd all of cases who are criminal irresponsible were linked to treatment. The mean time spentrnbetween court referral for forensic evaluation and report to the court as an outpatient at Lidetarnmental health court is 19.7 days. Whereas the mean time spent between court referral for forensicrnevaluation and report to the court as an outpatient at Amanuel hospital is 510.9 days. rnConclusion: - MHC reduce the time delay the offenders wait for evaluation. It also enablernoffenders with mental illness to get treatment. There is a huge gap on registry data baserndocumentation. rnRecommendation: - Data registry and documentation need to be improved so as to enable futurernresearcher to conduct study with enough sample.