NSW law bulletin … The AG and the defenestrated Law Reform Commission … Getting Alan Cameron to breathe life into a comatose commission … Criminal trial disgrace in the Dizzo … CCA cranky about underfunded trial courts … Two-Shoes throws $20 million at the problem
ALAN Cameron AO – mover and shaker and former Blake Dawson Waldron partner (now an Ashurst consultant) – was destined for far bigger things than landing the gig as chairman of the NSW Law Reform Commission.
Alan had been chairman of ASIC in the nineties and he was lining-up to be chancellor of the University of Sydney, where he had been deputy chancellor until the end of last year.
Bingo, Gabrielle Upton, the Goodie-Two-Shoes NSW attorney general, appoints him as chairman of NSWLRC – an institution that the Coalition government has run into the ground.
The commission hasn’t had a chairman since Jim Wood retired nearly two years ago or a full time-commissioner for the same length of time.
The number of part-time commissioners has shrunk from five to two – Supremo Peter Johnson and former Supremo, Hal Sperling. The term of Sperling’s appointment finishes at the end of December.
Gone are part-time commissioners Tony Whealy, Prof. David Weisbrot, Tim Game from the bar n grill, and deputy chief Madge, Jane Mottley.
The references also have been at a standstill, with the dispute resolution inquiry on the books since March 2013, and a consultation paper issued on the topic 20 months ago.
The AG said the new chairman would “hit the ground running” as she was giving the commission work to do on a guardianship reference.
In March Justinian reported on the government plans to defenestrate the independent commission and there was a follow-up story with the details of the actual decision.
The commission’s dedicated support staff were removed and three or four, including an executive officer, are now drawn from the justice department’s law reform and sentencing council secretariat.
According to a departmental media muffin, “project staff are assigned as required”.
In other words, the professional staff working on references are public servants, and are not independent of government.
There is no dedicated professional staff who can continuously work on references and an end to a structure of supportive collegiality.
Jim Wood, as chairman of the NSWLRC used to put in a solid four days a week. Goody Two Shoes made no mention of the time required for Alan Cameron to do the job.
AG Upton must have heard about the Court of Criminal Appeal’s exasperated outburst about delays in the Dizzo.
In September Judge Antony Townsden in the Dizzo upheld a crown application to vacate the October 19 trial for Cheih-Wei Lin and a co-accused on charges of importing methylamphetamine into Australia.
The crown said that instead of taking the estimated three weeks, the trial would now take at least six weeks, so the trial should be put over till sometime next year. At that stage the accused had been held in custody for 19 months.
Townsden set a new trial date for May-June 2016, which would have meant the accused spending more than two years in prison before trial.
Gabriel Wendler, counsel for Lin and Justinian’s wine correspondent, made an urgent application to the CCA, which set aside the Dizzo’s order and in the process made some strong criticism of the government for underfunding the court.
Justice Robert Hulme said it was notorious that delays in the District Court have lengthened and “it is contrary to the public interest for this to be allowed to continue”.
It was a concern, not only to the accused, who are presumed innocent, but to victims of crime and for the viability of prosecutions.
Justice Geoff Bellew said that letting the required extension of time be the basis of postponing the trial date and allowing it to take precedence over the adverse consequences for the accused was “unreasonable and plainly unjust”.
The CCA ordered the trial to go ahead on October, which it did. It ran for six weeks and after five days of deliberation, the jury found Lin guilty of importing 180 kilos of ice. She’s to be sentenced in February.
As at the date of the CCA reasons and orders, the NSW District Court had a backlog of 2,055 criminal cases. This is more than a 100 percent increase in four years.
While the court has been starved of resources, the law ‘n’ order squad in the government has poured money into more police, which has resulted in more arrests and more cases proceeding to trial.
Two months after the Court of Criminal appeal’s orders, attorney general Upton announced a $20 million package “to slash” the NSW District Court backlog by more than 600 criminal trials over the next two years.
The plan is for extra sitting weeks in western Sydney; targeted trial call over courts to identify issues earlier; pre-trial conferencing for trials lasting longer than 20 days; more acting judges; and the appointment of more public defenders.
A day later Upton announced an unspecified number of new legal aid lawyers for regional centres – “the latest step the government is taking to slash the District Court backlog”.
The campaign against media statements by the pro-QC ticket in the recent bar council elections has had no effect, because the NSW bar released a press statement on court delays and Gabriel Wendler in this video with Stephen Odgers explains what happen with his pre-trial application in the Lin case.