The Chief Justice of New South Wales, The Hon J.J. Spigelman has announced a new procedure to improve judicial management of criminal trials and hearing dates for sentences.
In consultation and agreement with the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, the NSW Legal Aid Commission and the Senior Public Defender, a new system of managing the arraignment of accused persons for trial or sentence in the Supreme Court will be instituted.
“This new procedure will mean that criminal trials are managed in a systematic way that is intended to achieve early preparation and disposal of cases by the prosecution and defence,” the Chief Justice said.
“Designed to reduce delay between committal, arraignment and trial or sentence, this new procedure will also reduce the instances of valuable judicial time being wasted when listed trials do not start or last only one or two days instead of, in some cases, several weeks previously estimated. When this occurs it is impossible to list replacement trials at short notice,” he said.
Broadly, the key aspects of the new procedure, effective 1 November, are:
- When a magistrate commits accused persons to the Supreme Court for trial, arraignment will take place approximately four months later. The date of the arraignment will be made known to the parties. Between committal and arraignment, the Crown and the defence will be expected to prepare particular aspects of the case and be ready to identify relevant issues and procedural aspects on the date of the arraignment.
- Where the accused pleads guilty before a magistrate, arraignment will take place at least four weeks later. A sentence date will be given at the arraignment.
- By the time of arraignment, the court expects that accused needing legal aid will have received a grant of aid and that a public defender or other defence counsel will have advised the accused. Also, in defended matters, the Crown will have served a copy of the indictment, statement of the Crown case, a list of the witnesses it proposes to call and all statements of those witnesses.
- At the arraignment, the prosecution and the accused should be represented by legal practitioners.
Presently, the delay between committal and trial for accused in custody is about 14 to 16 months. Accused on bail wait about two years between committal and trial.
“This new procedure should see this waiting time significantly reduced,” said the Chief Justice.
Chief Judge at Common Law (which includes the Criminal Division) Justice James Wood and Justice Graham Barr proposed and developed the new procedure.
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