NSW government expenditure on lawyers … Production of new legislation slows … Keeping shtum on the Suspect Target Management Plan … AG and bar in barney over criminal trial delays … Lies, damned lies and statistics
To hand comes the first report of the NSW Government Legal Services Panel, revealing that total legal panel billings for the financial year 2016-2017 were $123.4 million, with increases each quarter of between $27.4 million and $36 million.
The panel consists of 44 law shops across 35 distinct areas of law.
Naturally, the top 10 billers for major transactions included Clayton Utz, Ashurst, Minter Ellison, King & Wood Mallesons, Herbert Smith Freehills, Gilbert + Tobin and Allens – in that order.
See the billers here …
By “cluster”, Transport and Infrastructure topped the billings list at $77.9 million, followed by Health at $8 million, Premier and Cabinet $6.9 million, Justice and Police $6.5 million and Planning & Environment $6.1 million.
Actually, without Police, the Department of Justice only spent $170,000 on panel lawyers, among the lowest of all departments. The suggestion is that the AG and his department are no longer the principal source of legal advice to the government.
Premier & Cabinet spent $878,000 on legal matters associated with ICAC, $710,000 on the Ombudsman’s office and $521,000 on the Sydney Cricket Ground and Sports Ground Trust.
The NSW government equitable briefing policy is not faring too well. The total panel counsel briefings for the year amounted to $6.3 million, of which female barristers received $1.2 million, or 19 percent.
The report also listed the top 18 firms providing pro bono services to the community, headed by Salvos Legal, followed by Craddock Murray Neumann and Gilbert + Tobin.
The satisfaction survey showed that 32.5 percent of the firms exceeded service expectations, 60.1 percent met expectations and 7.4 percent (or 24 firms) needed to improve.
NSW Government Legal Services Panel inaugural annual report
The latest report from the NSW Parliamentary Counsel shows that it’s been a relatively quiet year when it comes to manufacturing legislation.
In 2016-17, 61 Bills were introduced, compared to 87 in the previous year and 109 in 2012-13.
This amounted to 2,389 pages from the counsel’s office, but comparisons are difficult because in 2013-14 the PCO’s page size was changed from B5 to A4. As a result the overall number of pages was reduced by 20-25 percent.
Exposure drafts of three Bills were prepared last year, compared to four the previous year (195 pages as against 441 pages in 2015-2016).
Some parliamentarians have ruefully observed that the small number of Bills introduced by the government confirms the absence of a legislative agenda by the Berejiklian junta.
Following findings by Public Interest Advocacy Centre, the Redfern Legal Centre and the University of NSW, the chief commissioner of the police watchdog, former judge Michael (Fatty) Adams, said the STMP is “problematic”.
He said that risk assessment tools in law enforcement often contained “disguised personal subjective assessments which are not truly objective … on the face of it one would have to question its reliability for predicting behaviour”.
The PIAC/UNSW/Redfern report found that children as young as 10 were targeted and overwhelmingly it was Indigenous Australians who were caught in the “management plan”. This was described as “oppressive policing“.
Lynch asked Police Minister Troy-Boy Grant how the targets are selected and whether a document exists setting out the risk assessment template?
There was another non-answer from the NSW police minister to a question on notice from the shadow AG.
In other words, the coppers will continue to do whatever the hell they like.
The NSW bar and the state AG, Mark Speakman, are having a little set-to over criminal trial delays in the District Court.
Last May, bar prez Arthur Moses issued a statement, citing a report from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, indicating that things were out of control at the Dizzo.
The number of matters sent for trial in the court had increased 35 percent over the last four years, while the number of cases finalised in that period increased by 40 percent. The bar pointed to other data that shows the median time between arrest and trial finalisation is now 714 days, up from 512 days in 2012.
The court has around 2,000 trials waiting for a hearing.
In December, there was another bar statement hammering home the point and adding that apart from a caseload of 2,000 trials there were 1,195 sentencing matters outstanding.
Between committal and finalisation the median delay rose 56 percent from 243 days to 378 days between 2012 and 2016.
To try and do something the government introduced the Committals and Guilty Pleas legislation, which seeks to speed things up by introducing sentencing discounts for early guilty pleas.
The bar was highly cranky. Moses said the new law will not reduce the overall number of cases that proceed to trial.
“The curbing of judicial discretion to provide discounts for pleas of guilty after committal will result in fewer pleas of guilty because there is little incentive to plead guilty once a person is committed for trial …
The legislation ignores the fact that sometimes there is late disclosure of evidence during a trial that leads an accused to form a view to plead guilty – a court will not be able to take this into account when dealing with a plea of guilty.”
The solution? More money for legal aid, more District Court judges, more resources. As it is the government has allocated $27 million for the early guilty pleas package, but most of it is earmarked for the DPP.
Fast forward to this month and AG Speakman was waving another bit of paper from BOCSAR. He claimed “spectacular results” for the rolling list scheme, which has been operating at the Dizzo for three years and has nothing to do with the Committals and Guilty Pleas Act.
The rolling list assigns a crown prosecutor and a senior defence lawyer to cases with the same judge presiding throughout.
The findings showed that on average guilty pleas were entered about 150 days after committal in rolling list cases, about 70 days sooner than in cases not on the rolling list.
Guilty pleas have been entered in about three-quarters of rolling list matters, compared with 58 percent on non-rolling cases.
Speakperson emphasised that large sentence discounts “will be off the table for last minute guilty pleas”.
Once again the bar was on its hind legs, pointing out that the rolling list initiative only applies to a small number of cases, where the defence is publicly funded through legal aid. Defendants paying their own way do not get onto the rolling list.
“With the criminal justice system near breaking point due to delays, the District Court needs more than a new case management approach to reduce the backlog,” said Arty Moses.
Last, but not least, Speakman answered on notice a question from the pesky shadow AG, the member for Liverpool, Paul Lynch.
It concerned s.310J of the Crimes Act, the bit that says you can get 10 years porridge if you are intentionally a member of a terrorist organisation. It was inserted into the Crimes Act on June 27, 2005 by schedule 4 of the Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Warrants) Act.
Question:
Answer, received December 21, 1027: