The criminal justice system in NSW needs a major overhaul to tackle the growing backlog of cases and improve the efficiency of the courts, a former Supreme Court judge and law reform commissioner has urged.
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The District Court, which hears the bulk of serious criminal cases across the state, is at breaking point with almost 2000 trials pending and a shortage of judges to hear the matters.
The NSW Law Reform Commission has warned the system is "in, or approaching, a state of crisis" and major systemic reforms are required.
"It's not meant to be alarmist," said former Supreme Court judge Anthony Whealy, QC, the lead law reform commissioner behind its latest report. "It's meant to be a cold, hard appraisal of the situation."
Figures released on Monday by the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show a sharp increase in the time taken to finalise criminal trials. It now takes an average of 300 days to finalise a case against an accused person who is being held in custody, up 44 per cent from 209 days in 2007.
The bureau says the backlog can be attributed to a number of factors, including an increase in the number of people being arrested for serious crimes and a trend towards longer trials.
The director of BOCSAR, Don Weatherburn, said there was a range of options available to tackle the problem, including appointing more judges and encouraging earlier guilty pleas.
The majority of criminal cases are resolved by guilty pleas but the NSW Law Reform Commission says in a report released in June that a significant proportion of guilty pleas occur as late as the day of the trial.
The commission has set out a suite of reforms for encouraging early guilty pleas, including a push to get charges right at an earlier stage; abolishing committal hearings, a type of preliminary hearing already scrapped or modified in other jurisdictions; and establishing a new system for discounting sentences based on when a guilty plea is entered.
Mr Whealy said the state government needed to "have a holistic look at the entire [criminal justice] system".
"You've got to tip it on its head. You've got to make people behave differently, including the lawyers and of course their clients," he said. "Once you've got maybe 30 per cent of the pleas of guilty occurring early in the piece, then you've freed up the judges at the other end."
Two specialist District Court judges were sworn in on Monday to hear child sexual assault matters. Attorney-General Gabrielle Upton said the judges would boost the trial capacity of the court but the government recognised that "further change is needed to deliver the justice system NSW needs and deserves; one that is faster, fairer and more accessible".
The government recognised that "early guilty pleas deliver certainty for offenders, speed up the justice process, reduce the burden on the NSW District Court and most importantly, reduce the stress and pressure on victims" and it was considering the commission's report, she said.
