DPPs “should be accountable” say SA barristers

On May 11, 2015, with exquisite timing, just days after the South Australian DPP Adam Kimber SC announced (to the surprise of many) he would retry Henry Keogh for murder in about a year’s time, The Adelaide Advertiser published the results of a survey with the headline: “SA lawyers say DPP must be held accountable for its decisions, not pursue cases doomed to failure.” This is the article:

Top barristers have taken part in an Advertiser survey to co-incide with Law Week, supporting the Law Society’s radical call that prosecutorial decisions be reviewed by an independent body.

Their comments highlight simmering tensions, between the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and defence counsel, over the handling of criminal cases.

Lawyers said the DPP’s poor attitude and erroneous decision-making delayed cases, unnecessarily consumes court time and inflates legal costs for defendants.

Barrister Craig Caldicott said prosecutors were not ensuring only cases with a reasonable prospect of conviction proceeded to trial.
“Instead of being courageous, the DPP is still very much concerned by what other people might think of its decisions,” he said.

“It worries about what the media might say, what the government might say, what the public might say.

“What should occur is that ownership is taken at an early stage, and the courageous decision not to prosecute some allegations made earlier rather than later.”

The Advertiser surveyed the opinions of lawyers, judges and magistrates ahead of annual Law Week. The survey prompted Law Society of SA president Rocco Perrotta to call for the creation of an external body to review prosecutorial decision-making.

“Wrong decisions to commence or continue with a prosecution, or the wrong choice of charges, causes considerable problems in the legal system,” he said.

“It may sound radical, but external review of prosecutorial decision-making is long overdue.”

Barrister Stephen Ey supported the call, and said awarding costs to acquitted people would force the DPP to take “a closer look” at their decisions.

“There are cases where prosecution have not behaved as the model litigant and have proceeded when it has been pointed out to them that there is no reasonable prospect of securing a conviction,” he said.

“In those cases costs should be awarded in favour of the successful defendant.”

Lawyer Heather Stokes said compensation should be available but “not easy” to obtain.

“It should be saved for the glaringly obvious cases that should not have gone ahead and carefully exercised,” she said.

Mr Perrotta agreed.

“It would be undesirable if authorities decided not to prosecute out of fear they may have to pay legal costs,” he said.

Attorney-General John Rau said concerns raised by the survey were “why we are presently in a consultation phase” on the State Government’s proposed justice revamp.

“I look forward to the support of those to whom you have spoken in progressing these reforms,” he said.

Director of Public Prosecutions Adam Kimber, SC, declined to comment.

Ed: For more information about the Keogh case, see

http://pursuedemocracy.com/2015/05/henry-keogh-retrial-high-bar-to-jump/

And various other articles published in this section, Justice and Democracy.

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One Response to DPPs “should be accountable” say SA barristers

  1. William Boeder says:

    An interesting situation has arisen here, that is directly relevant the role of a DPP.
    The legal defence had every right to advance their critical opinion toward this DPP.

    Now what was the basis that allowed this matter to become so contentious?
    Was it the inadequacy of prompt efficient decision-making?
    Was the DPP lackadaisical by habit?

    Clearly the appointment of this particular DPP was unsupportable.
    Further that this appointment was not given sufficient consideration, as there was clearly no merit in the appointment given to the said DPP.
    This person was unable to fulfil the demands of the appointed role.
    The justice system in South Australia was being impeded by the actions of those who had granted the appointment of the DPP, then too there were no checks and balances in place to allow for an early review of the inadequacy of performance.
    I believe that the appointment lacked merit, in that this allowed for an indecisive person to subsequently rack up the number of contentions and insufficiencies of performance..

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