InBrief

Law reform and public affairs

The New South Wales Bar Association Criminal Law Committee have been invited by the Department of Justice to participate in consultations throughout 2019 on the implementation of the Early Appropriate Guilty Plea (EAGP) reforms. The next consultation meeting will be held on Thursday, 22 August 2019. To assist the association in its participation in the consultations, the committee will be collating information as to the workings of the EAGP reforms and the experiences of practitioners with the scheme.

Members who have general feedback on the case conference under the EAGP scheme or specifically in respect of the following issues:

Charge certification and sufficiency of brief of evidence

• Was the most serious certified charge the same as the most serious police charge
• Was the brief of evidence sufficient to enable proper advice to be given before the case conference
• If so was the missing material provided prior to case conference

Case conference

• Did the prosecutor who certified the charge attend the case conference?
• Were any defence adjournments required for the attendance for case conference, and were they granted?

Committal

• Was the matter committed for trial or sentence?
• Was the most serious matter committed for trial or sentence the same as the most serious certified charge?

Trial/sentence

• Was the prosecutor who appeared on trial/sentence the same prosecutor who certified the charge and/or appeared at conference?
• Was evidence served post committal that would have been relevant to charge negotiations prior to committal?
• Did the Crown make/accept a better offer than they had made/accepted prior to committal?
• If the accused pleaded guilty did they do so because the Crown had accepted or made a new offer, or new evidence was served or the accused changed their mind.

Please email Ms Sophia Beckett at Sophia.beckett@justice.nsw.gov.au by Wednesday, 21 August 2019.