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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-05-25 Daily Xml
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Court Delays

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:09): My question is to the Attorney-General. Following the 2019 report and recommendations of former Supreme Court Judge Martin, how soon after Auxiliary District Court Judge Barrett's current review and report will action be taken to reduce court delays?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning and Local Government) (15:09): The member has raised the question of the review in relation to major indictable reform, which arose out of legislation I think in 2016. We felt, coming into government, that there were some major weaknesses in relation to that legislation and so we asked retired judge Brian Martin and former Chief Justice of the Northern Territory (he served there as well) to undertake a review, which he did, and there was some significant implementation of that.

Indeed, the new DPP coming into the office, Mr Martin Hinton QC, activated some significant reforms in the SAPOL prosecution unit and DPP department to try to increase some of those matters. Overlapping that, we have also acted as a government to reduce the significant level of discounting for sentencing in that time.

Meanwhile, as the member may be aware, there was a statutory obligation, I think at the end of three years or four years, that there has to be a review done, which was imposed by the parliament. That has to be done separately. I have asked Gordon Barrett, who is also a former retired District Court judge, to undertake that review so a fresh set of eyes looks at it as well. He may well look at some aspects that need to be improved.

It might be remembered that at the time of the major indictable review a lot of attention in the debate in this parliament was on what disclosure should there be by both the defence and the prosecution prior to matters—mostly by the defence in the bill, but we raised questions about the prosecution—so that there could be an opportunity for early resolution and early guilty pleas where the parties were fully advised, knew what the case was against them, etc.

In fact, there was a whole suite of other reforms in that legislation which related to making it essentially cheaper—this is, by the former government's intimation here—by reducing the workload and early intervention of the DPP's office and leaving it with the police prosecution. That clearly had weaknesses; Mr Brian Martin identified those, and some of those reforms, as I say, have already been implemented and we are proud to have done so. Mr Barrett, though, under the statutory review has to do that. He has been commissioned to do it. I expect I will have something in the next couple of months from him in relation to that review.

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