Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Philip Morgan KC: Barrister on the Government's proposal to increase the threshold for the right to a jury trial

Transcript

Philip Morgan KC: Barrister on the Government's proposal to increase the threshold for the right to a jury trial · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The government wants to reduce the number of jury trials
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to address backlogs in the court system. So to do this,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to get a jury trial at the moment, you must
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: be charged with an offense which carries a maximum penalty
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: of two years or more in prison. They want to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: up that too, three or four years. The idea being
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: that fewer people will have the option of a jury
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: trial and will speed the whole thing up. Philip Morgan
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: is Casey is a barrister. He's with us this morning. Philip,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: good morning, good morning, Thank you, thank you for being here.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Do you think this is going to work?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I have my doubt. I mean, cly, I applaud anything
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: to try and produce the backlog and the courts, but
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: I question the number of jury trials that will drop
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: merely because the threshold of two years in prison un
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: or more has changed to three years in prison or more,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: or even four years imprisonment or more. That's because I
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: think that the number of very trials which proceed to
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: trial for which the most serious offense in the Crown
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: charge notice is an offense of liable to a term
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: of imprisonment for two or three years or more. I
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: think that the number of such cases is very small.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, what is the hit rate? Guilty v. Not guilty
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: jury verse judge? What do you advise your clients?
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: There isn't an answer to the rate. And what I
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: tend to advise my clients is that there are advantages
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: and disadvantages in addcting either judge alone or judge and jury,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: and they need to make a decision based on a
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: series of criteria. These days, it's fair to say that
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: there's no real advantage to a defendant in deciding to
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: go judge alone compared to a ging jury. So in
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: it certainly in terms of your initial election, whether you
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: ultimately stay and have it with the election for trial
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: by jury or change it back to judge alone, you
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: know that will vary from case to case as well.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And you can get some benefits by doing that, can't
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: you If you pick judge alone, Do you have to
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: do judge alone?
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Ordinarily, yes, it's difficult to persuade a court once you've
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: elected judge alone or you've not made an election of
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: til by jury, to be able to change that to
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: judge alone.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: And that's part of the problem, isn't it, Because that's
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: why everyone goes, well, I'll do jury and then I
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: can always flip to judge alone later.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, which.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Draws the pro whole process out, which defeats the purpose.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, all right, hey, thanks very much for
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: your time. That's Philip Morgan k C with us. We say,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: barrister talking there about the government's plans to try and
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I am on applaud it for doing something I guess,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: try and reduce the backlog in our court system, because,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: as they say, justice delayed is justice denied.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: For more from News Talks B listen live on air
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: go with our podcasts on Irradio.