Editorial: Swifter justice welcome, but limit video use

Our system of criminal justice changed this month in two important respects. No longer will courts hold depositions hearings - full dress rehearsals of the prosecution - and no longer will juries have to reach unanimous verdicts. These steps, designed to save time and money, could extend to greater use of video links to lessen the need to bring people to court. That could be a step too far.

Certainly there is sense in using video for procedural formalities, especially for prisoners. There is no sense bringing them to court for call-overs that they could as usefully watch on screen. But sentencing by video would be going too far. Justice Minister Simon Power says he is aware of the principle that a judge passing sentence should have to look the offender in the eye but adds: "We are not going to be constrained by the historical notions of those with an institutional investment in the court process."

He sounds a little punch-drunk after going several rounds with legal aid lawyers over the scrapping of oral depositions and, to a lesser extent, unanimous jury decisions. It is most important that people accused of a crime can face their accusers, which includes witnesses who are able to face them, and the judge and jury who will decide their fate. That leaves plenty of scope to save time and money on appearances that could safely be relayed by camera.

Of all the recently enacted, or proposed, efficiencies for the courts, the end of deposition hearings should be the most fruitful. Defence lawyers resisted the move with an argument that the hearings were useful for exposing deficiencies in evidence, saving time when the case came to trial. But it took a forensic microscope to spot the differences between a case presented at depositions and that eventually put to the trial.

All the public saw was an expensive repetition and, more important, all that victims of crimes and their families could see was a needless duplication of their ordeal. Besides the trauma of two hearings, there is the time that the system takes. It can take 18 months or two years for a criminal charge to come to trial. For families grappling with grief there is a cruelty in this sort of delay that the system seems to ignore.

It takes at least a year or two after the loss of a loved one before families might begin to feel the healing power of time. And that is the moment the lumbering criminal justice system is ready to reopen their wound and examine events in gruesome detail.

While the end of oral depositions - the Crown must still present its evidence in written form - should clear the court calendars of much pre-trial dross, the introduction of majority jury verdicts is expected to greatly reduce the number of retrials.

From the beginning of this month, verdicts have been able to be returned on a majority of 11-1. It is anyone's guess whether a single dissension has been common, since our law strictly protects the secrecy of the jury room, but if a solitary dissenter cannot persuade even one other juror to his or her view, that ought not prevent a verdict.

Justice, however, is too important to cut corners without due care. The legislation for these changes allows the Solicitor-General to review the way they are working after two years. And other precautions have been built in. Lawyers can have a hearing of depositions if a judge agrees to their request. A preference for unanimous verdicts could also survive.

But time is not a minor consideration in the service we should expect of the courts. Nobody, especially those accused of crime, should have to wait years for a decision. Six months is surely long enough for both sides to assemble their case, run written briefs past a judge, and hold the trial. From now on, pre-trials and retrials should be a rarity. Justice should be better for it.