A Supreme Court judge in Queensland, Australia, Justice Jim Henry, has stated that serious criminal cases are taking "excruciatingly longer" to finalize due to "glacial" delays in the state's magistrates courts, where some matters spend several years in procedural limbo. Henry, based on data from his court, revealed that of 31 recent criminal cases he finalized between November and February, on average each case took over a year (370 days) in the lower courts before committal.

One case – involving a man jailed for sharing child abuse material and other related offences – took more than three years between the offender being charged and the magistrates court committing the matter to trial. Another, a drug-trafficking case, took two years and 10 months. In comments to lawyers at a function last month, now published as a paper in the Supreme Court library, Henry said that after 40 years working in the criminal justice system, "nowadays it takes excruciatingly longer than it once did to finalise charges of serious alleged crimes."

In the Queensland court system, like many others in Australia, serious criminal charges are first heard in magistrates courts. After a committal in the lower court, the matter is then passed to the superior court for trial or sentence. Henry noted that reforms passed in 2010, designed to help streamline the criminal process, have instead slowed – rather than streamlined – the justice process because police were no longer under pressure to finalize a brief of evidence for a listed committal hearing.

Henry pointed out that one problem is committals being adjourned to wait for "inconsequential" evidence when a case can otherwise proceed. Another is circumstances where police "have charged a defendant yet cannot produce evidence of a prima facie case." He questioned, "Why are the courts giving the police many months to assemble evidence, most of which they should have had before charging, while in the meantime the charged citizen’s liberty is infringed by bail conditions or incarceration on remand?"

The judge emphasized that the police choice of charging a citizen comes with the responsibility of being able to substantiate the charge. "It is an abuse of the court’s processes for the prosecution – part of the executive branch of government – to expect the court – the judicial branch of government – to be its agent in continually delaying the disposition of the case in the hope the police will produce the evidence they need," Henry added.

Source: www.theguardian.com