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Delays in the justice system are fixable, but interfering with jury trials is not the way to do it, a criminal defence lawyer says.
The government wants to raise the threshold for defendants opting for a jury trial and extend the time they have to choose between a jury or judge-alone trial.
Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith is seeking public feedback on the changes, which are intended to reduce court delays.
The number of active jury trials climbed from about 2000 six years ago to about 3400 last year, Goldsmith said yesterday. The average duration of a case climbed from 349 days to 498 days over the same period.
Criminal defence lawyer Marie Dyhrberg KC told Midday Report changing the law around how people could access a jury trial was a constitutional breach.
Govt proposes changes to jury trials
"Cost and delay is fixable, and it's not important enough to interfere with what jury trials bring to the legal system, to people who are charged, and to witnesses who end up coming to court as well."
Dyhrberg said setting the bar too high for jury trials could mean deserving cases would not qualify.
"Don't change long-held fundamental constitutional rights. When you can look at the systemic delays and costs and say we can do this better."
It would be more effective to address the time it took to get to callover and get police disclosures, she said.
"It takes a very long time for us to get to the point where we're at callover and setting a trial down."
Courts could speed up the process for getting disclosures from police to lawyers and do without intermediate hearings, she said.
"We are waiting around from the time someone come to us to the time we even set the trial date, three months away. We can streamline that process."
Consultation on the changes closes on 11 October.