Commital hearings face axe in push to streamline courts
An overhaul of Victoria’s justice system could slash the time it takes to bring criminals to trial and protect victims and witnesses by sparing them from giving evidence in court.
Police & Courts
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Criminals would be sent to jail sooner and victims spared the trauma of giving evidence in court more than once in a historic overhaul of Victoria’s justice system.
Victoria Police is leading the charge to slash the time it takes to bring offenders to trial and protect victims and witnesses from aggressive defence lawyers who force them to repeatedly relive their experience of horrific crimes.
The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal police and the Director of Public Prosecutions are urging the Andrews Government to bring Victoria in line with other states by dumping committal hearings.
The hearings, used to determine if criminal cases go to trial, can drag on for weeks and police warn they are being abused by defence lawyers as a “fishing exercise” to find ways to get offenders off.
New figures show magistrates allow witnesses to be cross-examined in 89 per cent of committal hearings, meaning they are grilled twice as they have to appear again in full trials.
Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd, QC, warned it took an average of 18 months to wrap up a criminal prosecution, an “excessive length of time considering the profound negative effect a prosecution has on victims and accused persons”.
A Victorian Law Reform Commission review, ordered by the government in 2018, has found seven out of 10 cases were being sent for trial or sentencing in higher courts — after a median 228 days for those involving a hearing.
Victims of Crime Commissioner Fiona McCormack said committal hearings were “redundant” and caused “significant trauma” because of “delays and unnecessary cross-examinations”.
Ms Judd is calling for a presumption against victims and witnesses giving evidence twice, and for prosecutors to identify appropriate charges earlier so victims have “realistic expectations of what will follow”.
Victoria Police has backed her model — involving streamlined issues hearings to disclose the prosecution case and organise resolution talks — and argues it would slash pre-trial court time to just a day in most cases.
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The force accused defence lawyers of running committal hearings even in “exceedingly strong” cases so they could test lines of defence, wasting time and causing a “considerable impost on staffing” for investigators.
Victoria Police said victims were re-traumatised by the process, including facing “intimidation by supporters of the defendant” in committals, and argued video recordings should be used more for victims and witnesses giving evidence.
The commission will deliver its report to Attorney-General Jill Hennessy by the end of March.
“I’m looking forward to receiving their report to consider how we can continue to make our criminal justice system fair, efficient and sensitive to the needs of victims,” she said.