"Justice cluster arrangements" - Herald calls on Premier Baird to heed legal profession advice
Mon Jan 09 2017Law reform and public affairs
On 12 December 2016 the president of the New South Wales Bar Association, Noel Hutley SC, and the president of the Law Society of New South Wales, Gary Ulman, issued a joint media release which called upon the premier to review agency arrangements and administrative orders to reflect the independence of the attorney general as first law officer and her department.
Under the current "justice cluster" arrangements, the minister for justice and police has been the senior minister, which has either allowed or created the perception of police interests setting the priorities for criminal justice policy in this state.
Last week, on 6 January, the Sydney Morning Herald raised the matter in an editorial entitled: "More to reshuffle than reordering the pack". The Herald warned that "the interests of police have always had to be, and will continue to have to be, balanced against civil liberty requirements, and the exigencies of the law as it has developed historically and as it works in practice".