Fishing Expeditions !

In November, 2017 the news headlines in Sydney reported a huge drug bust when police discovered a large quantity of liquid  ecstasy destined for the music market.  A man arrested in relation to that bust had connections with the Hell's Angels Sydney chapter and consequently he was denied bail and remanded to await his trial.

This week we got a vivid view of just what is wrong with our criminal justice system in this state.  That man has been waiting in jail for over eighteen months and this week the long awaited trial was suddenly cancelled - and postponed  to a new date which remains to be advised.   The reason for the delay  ?    The state could not find a prosecutor to take the case to trial.

Just as accused prisoners have the need to engage private counsel for their defence, it seems the state also engages those versed in the law in private practice to undertake prosecutions.  The reason for this trial cancellation seems to be that such a prosecutor unexpectedly withdrew from the case and returned the brief to the government.

What happens next seems to be a mystery.  A prosecutor needs adequate time to study the evidence in relation to the charges being pressed and then the case needs to find a place on a judge's docket. There is now the probability that this trial will not see the interior of a courtroom until April next year in which case the accused will have served  two and a half years in prison  without having been convicted of a crime.

This strikes at the very heart of the criminal justice system.   In this instance the accused has made two bail applications to the district court and one to the Supreme court - and all have been refused. There is the expectation that some sort of statute of limitations should be applied to the court process to make the state either take the case to court - or automatically release the accused on bail.   The remand statistics in this state speak for themselves.  The average time those refused bail spend on remand has blown out to 674 days and that in itself is a custodial sentence of significant magnitude.

It could also serve a tactical purpose for the police.  If the evidence gathered at the crime scene was not compelling a long period on remand before a trial in court would give extended time for further investigations to be carried out.    That is what are known in the trade as " fishing expeditions ".  An arrest on a relatively minor matter to enable the investigation to delve deeper into other suspected major crime activities.

Preventing a felon from fleeing out of a prosecutor's reach or interfering with witnesses is the usual reason for denying bail, but justice is not served if this is open ended.   A statute of limitations under which trial must go to court or the person on remand granted bail would seem a reasonable way of ending these defacto prison sentences.