No matter what you say ...

For a brief look at the requirements for establishing judicial bias, see Siemer v Heron [2011] NZSC 116. Orthodox response to a recusal application where the appellant relied on his own criticism of a judge as a basis for his claim of bias. Unsuccessful.

The NZSC on improperly obtained evidence

At last Hamed v R [2011] NZSC 101 is online, although in redacted form. It does not answer the question that will occur to most people: is it the duty of the police (1) to detect and stop offending, (2) to bring offenders to court with admissible evidence, or both of those, or some compromise between those?

The Prime Minister has indicated today that he will get legislation passed "suspending" the Supreme Court's decision in Hamed. Whatever that means, it is designed to ensure that other cases where covert surveillance has been used do not collapse because of exclusion of evidence obtained in that way. If in those cases, why not in this one too, since retrospective effect is intended? In any event permanent law reform is on the way "after the election".

This underlines the fact that it is not the police who are to blame for this (see my comment yesterday) but rather it is the fault of those who are responsible for giving effect to the Law Commission's recommendations.

But here I am concerned with the aspect of the case that will be of enduring interest to lawyers. This is the Supreme Court's first in-depth analysis of s 30 of the Evidence Act 2006.

The relevant question here is the extent, if any, to which the Supreme Court alters the interpretation of s 30 established in Williams v R [2007] NZCA 52, [2007] 3 NZLR 207 (CA) (not currently available online).

Where Williams is cited in Hamed, that is done with approval except on one point on which Tipping J departed from it at 240 by rejecting the Williams approach to assessing the seriousness of the offending. McGrath J also thought (277) that the maximum penalties were the guide although they were not a complete basis for assessment of the seriousness of the offending. But those were minority views, and Williams remains authoritative on s 30.

The application in Hamed of the balancing factors mentioned in s 30 needs to be considered. Broadly, it is orthodox. Aside from the minority difference just mentioned, there is some comment on the relevance of the centrality of the evidence to the prosecution case, but this only concerns whether this is relevant as a separate unspecified factor (Blanchard J at 201, Gault J agreeing at 281) or as part of the quality of the evidence factor in s 30(3)(c) (McGrath J at 276), but Tipping J dissented saying centrality is not relevant (236).

In applying the balancing criteria there was the usual variation in judicial opinion. The absence of an alternative investigatory technique was thought by Elias CJ to increase the seriousness of the impropriety (73), Blanchard J (196) appears to include this as a factor favouring admission of the evidence (Gault J agreeing at 281), Tipping J (246) also thought this pointed towards admission of the evidence, although not strongly, and McGrath J (274) treated this factor as increasing the reasonableness of the police misconduct. So, 4-1 absence of an alternative investigatory technique favoured admission.

The deliberate nature of the breach of the defendants' rights was an aggravating factor: Elias CJ 73, Blanchard J 194, Tipping J 233-234, but dissenting on this point McGrath J 267 thought that because the law was only now clarified by this case the deliberate nature of the breach did not enhance the gravity of the impropriety. And on the same point Gault J 284 did not agree with Blanchard J and held that the intrusion on the defendants' rights was no more serious that it was in relation to searches pursuant to warrant. Again, but by a different 3-2, the deliberate nature of the breach of rights did weigh in favour of exclusion.

The Supreme Court of Canada got some favourable mention, particularly for some of its dicta in Grant (see my discussion of that case here on 19 July 2009, and here twice on 18 July 2009). Tipping J at 230 approved dicta on the desirability of taking the long view of the repute to the justice system as opposed to responding to the immediate public clamour for conviction. Blanchard J 187 noted that the decision is not just a balancing of impropriety against the need to convict, but rather it comes down to the need to avoid bringing the system of justice into disrepute. Elias CJ 58 made the same observation, after saying 57 "It would be wrong to treat the assessment of proportionality as being the same in all cases of impropriety" – by which I think she means the division between exclusion and admission of the evidence is not marked by a straight line (see my discussion of improperly obtained evidence).

So, all in all (carefully working through the judgments to find the majority on each point) this is an orthodox application of s 30, even when the seriousness of the offending is assessed at an enhanced level because of public safety considerations.

Search, surveillance and the Urewera case

A newspaper report today has a commentator suggesting that confidence in the police will be reduced because of their handling of the investigation of what has come to be known as the Urewera terrorist case.

Until the Supreme Court decided the issue in a judgment not yet available on the usual web sites, R v Hamed [2011] NZSC 101, and which I have not yet seen, the law on whether search warrants could authorise surveillance was unclear. Differences among judges in this case reflected that lack of clarity.

As the New Zealand law Commission noted in its report "Search and Surveillance Powers" NZLC R97 2007, there are few references to surveillance powers in the statutes (see para 11.19 of the report). None of those are relevant to the Urewera case. The NZLC recommended that legislation should be formulated to clarify surveillance powers.

In the absence of a statutory or regulatory framework the courts have had to consider whether surveillance is a kind of search, and this has turned on the circumstances of each case. It was held to be not a search in a case which may still be subject to name suppression so I just give its neutral citation: [2010] NZCA 294, and also in another such case: [2010] NZCA 287. Sometimes surveillance from a neighbouring property by consent of the neighbour has been held to be lawful: R v Beri (2003) 20 CRNZ 170 (CA), and R v Robertson [2009] NZCA 154. And sometimes surveillance has been held to be a search: R v Gardiner (1997) 15 CRNZ 131 (CA). In other cases the courts have held that it was unnecessary to decide whether surveillance is a search because the issue of the admissibility of the evidence turned on the balancing exercise used at common law and which is now enacted in s 30 of the Evidence Act 2006: R v Fraser [1997] 2 NZLR 442, R v Peita (1999) 17 CRNZ 407.

The actions of an undercover officer approaching the defendant's door and secretly making a video recording of the ensuing events has not been held to be a search: R v Smith (Malcolm) [2000] 3 NZLR 656 (CA), although in the possibly suppressed case mentioned above, [2010] NZCA 287 the Court of Appeal noted that opinions may differ over whether this was a search, so it determined the admissibility of the evidence on reasonableness and balancing grounds.

Where the police obtained a search warrant and installed video surveillance equipment, the Crown conceded that that was illegal, however the Court of Appeal doubted whether that concession was correct: (another possible name suppression case) [2010] NZCA 457.

So even right up to the Supreme Court's decision in the Urewera case the law was unclear as to whether surveillance was necessarily a search. The point was if surveillance was a search, it could be authorised by a search warrant. If it was not a search and could not be legitimised in that way, and if it involved a trespass the admissibility of evidence obtained by such surveillance was governed by the balancing exercise in s 30. In the Urewera case, the High Court held that surveillance could not be authorised by a search warrant, but the Court of Appeal overruled that decision. The Supreme Court overruled the Court of Appeal on this point. It also overruled the Court of Appeal and the High Court on the admissibility of some of the evidence where it related to less serious charges.

[Update: as it turned out, the Supreme Court's analysis of search was more subtle than this. It differentiated between a narrow form of search that could be authorised by a warrant - search for things that existed at the time the warrant was executed, where "things" did not include captured images - and the wider form of search that was addressed in s 21 of the Bill of Rights. Covert surveillance is a search when it infringes reasonable expectations of privacy, but it cannot be authorised by a search warrant. There could be an unreasonable search without a trespass: Blanchard J at 57, 63, 64 of [2011] NZSC 101, another aspect of which is discussed here tomorrow.] 
 
My impression from media reports as the case has made its rather slow way through the courts is that the police acted in good faith in their approach to collecting the evidence. I don't see any reason for the public to lose confidence in the police over this aspect of the case.

A small collection ...

No compensation for judicial breach of rights

If a judge breaches your rights under the Bill of Rights, you may not claim compensation: Attorney-General v Chapman [2011] NZSC 110 (16 September 2011) per McGrath and William Young JJ jointly with Gault J concurring. Elias CJ and Anderson J dissented.

The majority reasoning emphasised public policy which was an extension to the personal immunity of judges from suit and was based on the need to protect judicial independence.

Eyewitness identification evidence

An illustration of circumstances where there was insufficient support for the reliability of identification by an eyewitness who claimed in a fleeting sighting to recognise the defendant from two encounters several years previously (there being no evidence about why those should have made the present identification more reliable), so that the requirements of s 45 of the Evidence Act 2006 were not met, is Harney v Police [2011] NZSC 107 (16 september 2011). The Court emphasised the need for strict compliance with s 45 in view of the dangers of mis-identification. Dock identifications too should be permitted only in the most exceptional circumstances [20 at footnote 20]. The witness's confidence in the accuracy of his own identification is just a factor to be taken into account, as the opposite side of the coin of hesitancy, and confidence cannot itself satisfy a reliability test [33].

Mootness and ordering judge alone trials

Occasionally an appellate court may hear and decide an appeal notwithstanding that the issue in question no longer is a live one in the case: Signer v R [2011] NZSC 109 (16 September 2011), applying R v Gordon-Smith [2008] NZSC 56 (its substantive point discussed here on 23 March 2009) and see also R v McNeil [2009] SCC 3 discussed here on 20 January 2009).

The substantive point in Signer concerned the interpretation of s 361D of the Crimes Act 1961. Does the word "likelihood" in subsection 3(b) mean that a judge must find it "probable" that jurors will not be able to perform their duties effectively? Or does it just mean that the judge considers there is an "appreciable risk" of that? The Supreme Court held that "likelihood" imports a balancing exercise and does not set down a specific standard. The accused's right to a jury trial may be outweighed by the need for a fair trial. Beyond saying that, the Court preferred not to explore the matter without a live issue which would provide specific circumstances for consideration.

More on Momcilovic

I should, so as not to appear lazy, add a few observations on the aspects of R v Momcilovic (last entry) concerned with interpretation.

It is not unusual to find in Bills of Rights provisions to the effect that rights shall only be subject to such limitations as are justified in a free and democratic society. Section 32(1) of the Victorian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is an example. So too is s 5 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The question is, are these provisions to be used in defining what the rights mean?

In Momcilovic the minority (French CJ, Crennan and Kiefel JJ) answer was no, s 32(1) is just a mechanism by which the court can decide whether to issue a declaration that the legislation in question inconsistent with the rights. However the majority (and I recall Dworkin's comments on the weights that might be given to individual judge's votes: Justice for Hedgehogs, pp 484-485) did use the rights-limiting provision as interpretive: Gummow J at 166-168, Hayne J agreeing at 280, Heydon J at 411-427, and Bell J at 678. Similarly, but where the New Zealand BORA does not give the courts power to make declarations, s 5 has been held to be interpretive, to be used to determine what the right means: Hansen v R [2007] NZSC 7 per Blanchard, Tipping, McGrath and Anderson JJ (57-60, 89-92, 186, 190-192), but with Elias CJ dissenting at 6, 7, 15-24. The Chief Justice's dissent takes the approach which was favoured by the minority of the High Court of Australia in Momcilovic.

But even this interpretive role in the New Zealand approach is not necessarily applied. For example, in Morse v Police [2011] NZSC 45, discussed here on 6 May 2011, only McGrath J used it.

The interpretive method, outlined by McGrath J in Hansen at 192, applies the following steps:

1. Ask first whether the circumstances fit within the ordinary meaning of the statutory provision being applied. Here, which standard of proof would be a natural interpretation of the reverse onus provision?
   
2. Then ask whether, on that meaning there appears to be an inconsistency with a protected right. Here, is the legal burden on the defendant inconsistent with the right to be presumed innocent?
   
3. If there is such an inconsistency, ask whether the limit on the right is a justifiable one in terms of s 5. Here, is the legal burden on the defendant justifiable?
   
4. If the limit is not justifiable, ask whether there is another meaning available through which the statute can be read consistently with the right. Here, can the reverse onus provision be read in a way that puts an evidential burden on the defendant?
   
5. If there is no such other meaning, the natural meaning must be applied. Here, the legal burden on the defendant.
   

For the fourth step, which is interpretive, the powers given by the relevant interpretive provision must be considered. Is the court limited to applying the ordinary and natural meaning of the legislation, or can the court apply a meaning that "can be given" to the enactment, or thirdly, is the court allowed to be more imaginative and strain the words of the statute to preserve the relevant right? In Momcilovic French CJ, Crennan and Kiefel JJ applied the ordinary rules of statutory construction, including the principle of legality, to determine the meaning of the reverse onus provision. This was the first of these interpretive approaches, although these judges were denying that the rights limiting procedure was relevant and were in effect just using step 1. Accordingly, no straining for an unnatural but rights-consistent meaning was permitted. There was no asking what might be reasonable limits on the right to be presumed innocent. But the minority agreed with the majority that the construction contended for by the defendant was not available on ordinary principles of statutory interpretation: to "satisfy" the court means more than merely to raise a reasonable doubt.

It is well worth reading French CJ's judgment in Momcilovic at 37-51 for a comparison with the approach in applying s 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998[UK], in particular at 49:

" ... Section 3 of the HRA has a history and operates in a constitutional setting which is materially different from that which exists in Australia. Before its enactment, United Kingdom courts, which had to give effect to the supremacy of European Community law, lacked domestic legislation providing for the direct application of rights under the ECHR. In the result there was a perception that British judges were denied the responsibility of safeguarding Convention rights and that the European Court of Human Rights had become "in effect a supreme constitutional court of the UK."[Footnote 97: "Lester, Pannick and Herberg (eds), Human Rights Law and Practice, 3rd ed (2009) at 12 [1.34]."] The HRA was enacted under the political rubric of "bringing rights home"[Footnote 98: "Lester, Pannick and Herberg (eds), Human Rights Law and Practice, 3rd ed (2009) at 12-15 [1.35]-[1.46]."]."

Perhaps this is a clue for anyone who, like me, is perplexed about why s 3 of HRA should be given a different meaning to s 6 BORA, as it was in Hansen and Lambert, as was mentioned in yesterday's note. The UK enactment applies the provisions of a Convention, whereas the NZ one is technically just an ordinary statute. In the absence of some sort of rationale like this, one is left with the thought that there is a bit of judicial pride being protected.


The UK interpretive approach is of the third kind mentioned above: some straining for a rights-compliant meaning is allowed (Ghaidan v Godin-Mendoza [2004] UKHL 30 noted here 19 September 2005), the New Zealand and Australian approaches are of the second kind.

And for a wee caustic-to-the-point-of-being-truthful glimpse of how the law works, see Heydon J in Momcilovic at 455.

Reverse onus provisions and the presumption of innocence

A reverse onus provision is one that puts a burden of proof on the defendant. It raises questions about what standard of proof is required to meet that burden. Illustrations commonly occur in legislation concerning drug offending.

For example, s 6(6) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975[NZ] applies when a person has been proved to have been in possession of a specified quantity of a drug, and it operates by creating a presumption that the person had the purpose of supplying it, "until the contrary is proved". This has been held to mean that the defendant has the legal burden – that is, to the standard of the balance of probabilities – of proving absence of that purpose: Hansen v R [2007] NZSC 7. The Supreme Court held that "proved" means proved on the balance of probabilities, and it rejected an interpretation of "proved" which was that it means the burden of raising a reasonable doubt, that is, the evidential burden. For my earlier commentary, see 13 January 2010, 5 March 2009, 20 February 2007, and 19 September 2005.

This latter, rejected, interpretation of "proved" was based on a suggestion by Glanville Williams in "The Logic of 'Exceptions'" [1998] CLJ 261, 265. I had relied on that article in making submissions (also rejected) to the New Zealand Court of Appeal in R v Phillips [1991] 3 NZLR 175. In that case, Cooke P for the Court found that interpretation of "proved" a "strained and unnatural interpretation".

The House of Lords did not find it "strained and unnatural" in R v Lambert [2001] UKHL 37, and indeed at [42] Lord Steyn said:

"In Kebilene [ [2002] 2 AC 326 ] I described this as a respectable argument: 370G. Lord Slynn agreed: 362A. Lord Cooke of Thorndon regarded the distinguished author's view as a possible meaning under section 3. Specifically, Lord Cooke stated that "unless the contrary is proved" can be taken to mean "unless sufficient evidence is given to the contrary" [2000] 2 AC at 373G. I respectfully adopt Lord Cooke's observation. Applying section 3 I would therefore read section 28 (2) and (3) as creating an evidential burden only. In particular this involves reading the words "prove" and "proves" as meaning giving sufficient evidence."

So, something about s 3(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998[UK] allowed Lord Cooke (who was the same person as Cooke P in Phillips) to accept the Glanville Williams interpretation of "proved", whereas the corresponding provision of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, s 6, had allowed neither him nor the Court in Hansen to accept it.

Much can turn on the interpretive directions given by the constitutional legislation.

The same submissions about the reverse onus were made in Momcilovic v R [2011] HCA 34 (8 September 2011). The wording of the reverse onus provision here was different and was held to be unambiguous, in that it requires the defendant to "satisfy the court" of the specified matter. "Satisfy" has always been understood to mean to establish on the balance of probabilities. See French CJ at 62, Crennan and Kiefel JJ jointly at 581 and Bell J at 659. That applied to proof of possession of the drug. But as to possession for the purpose of trafficking, the legislation did not impose a presumption and so the possession and the purpose had to be proved by the prosecution to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt: French CJ at 72, Gummow J at 200 (Hayne J agreeing at 280), Crennan and Kiefel JJ at 611 and Bell J at 659.

Momcilovic is, in addition, full of dicta of interest to those who are concerned with the Australian constitutional legislation.

For the curious ...

To begin the eighth year of this site, I reflect on the rewards and pleasures of scholarship, here.

Scientific research on eyewitness identification evidence

Every criminal law practitioner and judge should read the amicus brief filed by the American Psychological Association in Perry v New Hampshire (cert granted, No 10-8974). It refers to research on the risks of errors in eyewitness identification evidence, and on the utility of judicial warnings to juries.

(Thanks again to Peter Tillers of Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University for pointing this out.)

Now we are seven

That's seven years of this blog!

Usually I mark the anniversary by some repulsively self-indulgent boasting, smugly superior conceit or obnoxiously vain self-citation.

Not this time.

The relevance of expert opinion

Thanks to Peter Tillers in New York for drawing our attention to a High Court of Australia decision which includes discussion by Heydon J of an interesting point about expert evidence: Dasreef Pty Ltd v Hawchar [2011] HCA 21 (22 June 2011).

The joint judgment of French CJ, Gummow, Hayne, Crennan, Kiefel and Bell JJ did not analyse the issue in a way that made it necessary to address the point I will mention below (41), because these judges decided that in this case the testimony offered as expert opinion was not based on the witness's specialised knowledge based on training study or experience. That requirement for admissibility being absent, they held that the trial judge had no evidence to support the conclusion he reached.

Heydon J, on the other hand, was of the view that the evidence legislation, although silent on the point, did leave room for its application. So what was the point? It was: is it necessary that there be evidence of facts upon which it is proposed that an expert should base an opinion, before the expert gives evidence of that opinion? Or, can the expert be called and give evidence of that opinion, on the understanding that evidence will subsequently be called to establish the relevance of that opinion? At 121-127 Heydon J explains why there should be a rule that relevance be established before the expert evidence is adduced.

It seems that the legislation in New Zealand leaves open the possibility that the rule favoured by Heydon J may not apply: s 25(3) of the Evidence Act 2006. Also, s 14 provides for provisional admission of evidence.

This would surely be a matter for the judge's discretion, and would depend on how practical it would be to deal with expert evidence that had been given but which was subsequently found not to be admissible. In judge alone trials it would not be likely to matter, but in jury trials questions of fairness may arise if there was a real risk that the jury would be rendered partial as a result of having heard the inadmissible evidence.

Legal aid eligibility and fair trial requirements

At a time when we are considering the implications of restricting the availability of legal aid, the Supreme Court of Ireland reminds us that the constitutional right to a fair trial may require legal aid to be granted, even where a defendant is not at risk of imprisonment: Joyce v DJ Brady [2011] IESC 36. O'Donnell J, for the Court, observed [13]:

" ... for a person who has never appeared in court before and who faces the possibility of conviction for theft an offence of dishonesty with all that that entails for prospects of employment, I do not think it could be considered anything other than serious.

"[14] It is worth considering what would be involved in a professional defence of the case. It would be necessary to know that the offence itself was indictable but could be tried in the District Court but only with the agreement of the accused. It would be necessary therefore to form some view as to which court would be the most desirable from this accused's point of view. If the matter was to proceed in the District Court it would be also necessary to know that an application could be made for disclosure which might inform the accused of the case which he had to meet. It might also be necessary to know the extensive law that has grown up in recent years about the significance of CCTV evidence, and more particularly, its absence. Careful consideration would have to be paid, to both the legal and factual basis upon which it could be said that the actions of the two women in the Spar shop could be attributed to the applicant. In addition to all of these steps a lawyer would have to consider what witnesses would be available for the defence. Leaving aside the statutory formula for one moment, if the sole question for a court was whether anyone would think this was the sort of case that could be fairly defended by a litigant on their own whilst suffering perhaps from that "fumbling incompetence that may occur when an accused is precipitated into the public glare and alien complexity of courtroom procedures, and is confronted with the might of a prosecution backed by the State" (State (Healy) v. Donoghue [1976] I.R. 325, 354), then there could in my view, be only one correct answer."

...

"[16] ... The constitutional right, from which an entitlement to legal aid for impecunious defendants was deduced is, primarily, the right to a trial in due course of law guaranteed by Article 38 of the Constitution. That is a right to a fair trial; it cannot be reduced to a right not to be deprived of liberty without legal aid. There is something fundamentally incongruous in the contention that a trial for theft would be unfair if the accused was convicted (perhaps having pleaded guilty) and sent to jail for even a day, but that a trial of the selfsame offence including the same facts and issue of law would become fair if the accused were only fined or required to do community service if convicted, even though such conviction would brand him a thief."

...

"[20] ... given the unpredictability of court proceedings, and the fact that the full facts may emerge if at all on a full trial, then unless the test as to whether an accused might face a risk of imprisonment were applied with considerable flexibility there could be a serious risk of confusion, error, waste of time and, not least, injustice."

If legal aid is not available to a defendant who wants legal representation but who cannot, in reality, afford to pay a lawyer, fair trial requirements may prevent a conviction. See Condon v R [2006] NZSC 62, discussed here on 24 August 2006, and other cases under the heading "Counsel" in the Index to this site.

Financial criteria limiting the availability of legal aid cannot justly be applied inflexibly. The real cost of private legal representation must be weighed against a defendant's actual disposable income. This is not to say that legal aid should be a gift, as arrangements can be made for reimbursement of state funding by the defendant on an instalments basis.

Evidence of vulnerable witnesses – pre-trial recording

Only rarely will it be appropriate for a court to permit pre-trial recording of the evidence, including cross-examination, of a vulnerable witness: R v M (CA335/2011) [2011] NZCA 303 (9 August 2011, published in redacted form 19 August 2011).

The judgment discusses the reasons for and against this procedure and concludes that it would take a compelling case to overcome the disadvantages. Those disadvantages include the increased use of court resources and time, the increased costs in all counsel having to prepare twice, greater delays for accused persons as the reasons favouring fast-tracking of child sex cases would no longer apply and there would be ongoing stress for family members.

And, more generally, the defence is not required to show its hand before trial and forcing it to do so could adversely affect fairness of the trial, the judge would need to be sure that full disclosure had been made to the defence before pre-recording of cross-examination, the sole advantage to complainants would be the reduction in delay before giving evidence, the jury could not properly assess the spontaneous reaction of the defendant to the complainant's evidence, the jury would not be able to ask questions of the complainant unless he or she was required to attend at the trial, and it is highly likely that such attendance would be required in the interests of fairness if it were claimed by the defence that new topics for cross-examination had arisen from information obtained after the pre-trial recording had been completed.

Extradition, separation of powers, abuse of process and the Westminster model

Extradition can be opposed on abuse of process grounds: Fuller v Attorney-General (Belize) [2011] UKPC 23 (9 August 2011) at [58]. The relevant sort of abuse of process would be [5]:

"(i) making use of the process of the court in a manner which is improper, such as adducing false evidence or indulging in inordinate delay, or (ii) using the process of the court in circumstances where it is improper to do so, as for instance where a defendant has been brought before the court in circumstances which are an affront to the rule of law, or (iii) using the process of the court for an improper motive or purpose, such as to extradite a defendant for a political motive."

An application for habeas corpus may be granted and a stay ordered. In the absence of an express constitutional provision to the contrary, it is a characteristic of democracies in the Westminster tradition that separation of powers places in the hands of an independent and impartial judiciary the protection of fundamental human rights [38-41]. The decision on whether extradition would be an abuse of process is not therefore one exclusively for the executive to make.

To retry or not to retry, that is the question

A strong legal system will ensure a fair trial for a defendant who is obviously guilty of a serious crime. R v Maxwell [2010] UKSC 48 (judgment given on 20 July 2011) is centred on the tension between the court's need to have its proceedings untainted by police misconduct and the need to uphold the public interest in conviction of the guilty.

After the Criminal Cases Review Commission had exposed serious police misconduct in the collection of evidence against the accused, the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction for a particularly vile murder. However, while he was serving his sentence and when his conviction was being investigated the defendant made admissions which supported an inference of guilt. The Court of Appeal decided to order a retrial because of this new evidence. That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Were the new admissions tainted by the police misconduct that had led to his conviction and sentence?

The Court split 3-2 on this.

The problem of when events have moved on sufficiently from police misconduct to leave untainted any evidence subsequently discovered often arises in the context of improperly conducted searches. See for examples, R v Wittwer, discussed here on 6 June 2008, Gafgen v Germany, discussed here on 3 July 2008 and again on 25 June 2010, R v Ogertschnig and Police v Chadwick both discussed here on 26 October 2008.

The difference between the judges in Maxwell turned on whether the "but for" test was conclusive: if the admissions would not have been obtained but for the impropriety, they are tainted. Or was this just one matter to be considered in the balance?

You might think it obvious that since Mr Maxwell was in prison serving a sentence that had been imposed as a result of a substantial miscarriage of justice which was of such a magnitude that a stay of proceedings could have been granted ([11]) to prevent an abuse of process, his admissions were tainted.

When judges are resisting coming to a conclusion that should be obvious, they tend to call the case a hard one. A cynic might say it wouldn't be hard if they got it right. Lord Dyson repeatedly referred to this case as difficult, and Lord Rodger also noted the Court of Appeal’s difficult decision, Lord Mance didn’t find it an easy case, but Lord Brown dissenting didn’t find it difficult at all ([105]). Lord Rodger acknowledged that he had changed his mind since the hearing; had he not done so, the result of this appeal would have been different.

From this you can guess that the majority held that the admissions were not tainted and that the Court of Appeal had rightly ordered a retrial. Lord Dyson delivered the leading judgment in which he reasoned that the admissions were voluntary and were made in what Mr Maxwell then perceived to be his own interests [26]. So, while they would not have been made but for the tainted proceedings, there were other relevant factors to take into account. Only one [31] was mentioned here: the seriousness of the offending (but Lord Brown at [104] adds the strength of the case against the defendant as another). Lord Dyson also accepted that the Court of Appeal was right to think that the admissions were untainted in the sense that the police did not intend to obtain them when they were indulging in the serious misconduct [32].

This reasoning seems a bit fragile. Lord Dyson also thought that there are two balancing exercises: a narrow one to decide whether there had been an abuse of process, and a wider one to decide whether to require a retrial [21]. But, you might think, a retrial would be pointless if the evidence was inadmissible on abuse of process grounds, and if the abuse was not sufficient to exclude the evidence, how could there be an objection to a retrial? Wasn't Lord Brown right to say [98] in his dissent that it is really all one question of balancing the conflicting public interests of convicting the guilty on the one hand and maintaining the rule of law and the integrity of the criminal justice system on the other?

The result is fact-specific, and Lord Brown recognised [103] that if Mr Maxwell had made his admissions after his conviction was overturned there would have been no objection to a retrial.

Lord Collins, also dissenting, added [115] that a retrial was inappropriate because of the seriousness of the police misconduct, the fact that the admissions would not have been made but for the conviction so procured, and Mr Maxwell had served a substantial sentence.

Well, you can't say it isn't an interesting case. There are some useful summaries of the law on stays of proceedings [13–14], abuse of process [15-16], and of course the interests of justice in relation to deciding whether to order a retrial. The Court did not find it necessary to consider whether the duty to stay proceedings to prevent abuse of process where evidence had been improperly obtained is rightly conceived as a balancing exercise involving the seriousness of the offending: see my discussion of Warren v Attorney-General of the Bailiwick of Jersey on 31 March 2011. Where a stay would, as here, have been appropriate at trial, the court is saying that regardless of whether the defendant is guilty, the official impropriety was so serious that mere exclusion of tainted evidence would be insufficient to uphold the administration of justice. The admissibility decision does take into account the seriousness of the offence, but here the court says the impropriety has outweighed that. In such circumstances, subsequent discovery of new evidence of guilt would be irrelevant. Existing statutory provisions empowering courts to permit retrials of acquitted persons do not apply where stays have been ordered, nor do they require the seriousness of the offence to be taken into account, partly because they only apply to serious offences or to all offences where an acquittal was obtained by the defendant's perversion of the course of justice (obviously I generalise here: check your own statutes).

The misconduct here was indeed something rotten in the state of England. Like the ghost it craved justice but the new day brought new concerns

" ... It lifted up its head and did address

Itself to motion like as it would speak;

But even then the morning cock crew loud,

And at the sound it shrunk in haste away

And vanish'd from our sight."

Substantive and procedural fairness

Procedure is the means by which the law is brought to life. It converts words to actions. The law recognises a right to a fair trial, and this is a substantive right. To convert fairness from a right to a reality, rules of procedural fairness have developed. These rules will be effective to the extent that they produce trials that are substantively fair.

We need to know what a fair trial is in substance, and by what procedure to get it. The scope of a court's inherent power to create procedures that have implications for trial fairness was considered in Al Rawi v The Security Service [2011] UKSC 34 (13 July 2011). Note the helpful summary provided in the link at the top of the judgment.

This case concerned an extension to the Public Interest Immunity procedures (as to which see R v Davis [2008] UKHL 36, noted here 19 June 2008) which is called the "closed material procedure". This would go beyond PII by allowing the judge to see - and to decide the case on - material not shown to a party, and by allowing judgments to be given that were similarly not disclosed. The Supreme Court held (I generalise here and so am a little inaccurate in the interests of brevity) by a majority that only the legislature could create procedures that departed from the fundamental principles of open justice and natural justice.

While the Court recognises the power of Parliament to make procedural laws that limit the open justice principle and the natural justice principle, does it concede that the courts would require proceedings to continue if those laws had the effect in a particular case of making the trial substantively unfair? Would there be a difference in this between criminal and civil cases?

(20 marks)

Changing perceptions of fairness

The law seems to move rather slowly for poor people in Trinidad and Tobago, if Krishna v The State (Trinidad and Tobago) [2011] UKPC 18 (6 July 2011) is anything to go by. The murder occurred on 26 May 1984, the conviction at trial was on 12 January 1988, the appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed on 5 October 1995, and the Privy Council quashed the conviction, refusing to order a retrial, just the other day.

The case is a lesson in how perceptions of trial fairness can change over time. The trial seems to have been conducted according to the law as it then was as far as a direction to the jury on the reason the judge had ruled a confession admissible was concerned. The judge told the jury that he had decided that the statement had been made voluntarily. The law on this changed subsequently, so that it is no longer proper for the judge to reveal to the jury a decision on admissibility: Mitchell v The Queen (Bahamas) [1998] UKPC 1; [1998] AC 695. This was therefore an error relevant to this appeal.

Another ground of appeal was the failure of the judge to give a proper accomplice direction. The Court of Appeal had applied the proviso on this point, but the Board considered this to be a material irregularity in the context of the judge's positive comments about that witness. The law on accomplice directions had been established in Davies v Director of Public Prosecutions [1954] AC 378, so this is not a point about changing perceptions of fairness. 

A third ground of appeal was that the judge had not given an adequate good character direction. The Board considered that on its own this would not have been sufficient to shake the safety of the conviction, and that because this was not a case where the defendant had given evidence and put his credibility against that of other witnesses, it would ignore this ground. But significant for my point about changing perceptions of fairness is the increased importance of good character directions that was established in developments in the law after this trial: R v Aziz [1996] AC 41. Had the trial occurred after Aziz, a stronger good character direction would have been required, although in this case its absence may not have been decisive (compare Brown v R (Jamaica) noted here 21 April 2005; Gilbert v R (Grenada) noted here 29 March 2006).

Mr Krishna was ordered, after 23 years in custody as a sentenced prisoner, to be immediately released:

"Strong though the evidence against the appellant was, the Board is unable to conclude that the jury would have inevitably convicted the appellant if these irregularities had not occurred."

Will there be an award of compensation? Better not to hold one's breath. Clearly the trial had been unfair, because it could not be said that the jury was impartial: the judge's comments on voluntariness indicated a preference for the police witness's credibility, and lack of an accomplice warning also told against impartiality. Given that the trial had not been fair, the conviction could not stand. The Board's comments on the strength of the case against the appellant were made in the context of whether to order a new trial, and as one was not ordered, compensation would be appropriate even under the meanest regimes; see my discussion of compensation here on 15 May 2011.

When time is broke ...

"What is dawn in the city to an elderly man standing in the street looking up rather dizzily at the sky?"

This sentence from the penultimate paragraph of Virginia Woolf's work of consummate genius, "The Waves", has been with me since I first read it in the '70s. So has Shakespeare's wonderful

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me."

Time's measurement has in the last six weeks caused ructions in the United Kingdom, where the legislature is set to uphold a practice which was based on a misconception about time. An interpretation of provisions allowing the police to detain suspects for questioning for no longer than a specified period, which could be extended, had been followed without judicial consideration for over 20 years. Then someone said, just a minute, is this legal, what does the statute mean? It did not mean what it had been assumed to mean: R (On the Application of the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police) v Salford Magistrates' Court [2011] EWHC 1578 (Admin).

The legislature seems eager to establish the position as what the police had thought it to have been rather than what it probably seemed to the original enactors to have been. The police snap their fingers, and the legislature obeys.

In a general sense, the interpretative dispute was over whether time should be measured as if it flows continuously from a specified moment, or as if it is a series of discrete periods which are to be considered in their aggregate.

The kind of people who are reminded by this of passages from Virginia Woolf and Shakespeare will also remember that Zeno's arrow paradox cautions us against the perils of dividing time, while his tortoise paradox shows that division of events can also be problematic.

Don’t let me spoil this one by quoting ...

There are rare moments when a brilliant judgment makes others look vapid and pathetic. So it is with Judge Bonello's roasting of the House of Lords and of the United Kingdom government's arguments in Al-Skeini v United Kingdom [2011] ECtHR 1093 (7 July 2011). Even the Grand Chamber judgments with which he concurred seem inept by comparison, fumbling with a subject which he has firmly in his grasp. Compulsory reading for anyone who would be an advocate or a judge.

Sorts of fairness: abuse of process, plea bargaining and the stay of proceedings

There is something unsettling about R v Nixon, 2011 SCC 34 (24 June 2011). It is the possibility that an issue of trial fairness may be determined by a balance between societal interests and individual concerns.

The conceptual scheme that allows this possibility was set out in the Court's judgment, delivered by Charron J, at [33-42]. The first point is unexceptional: there are two categories of abuse of process – those which concern trial fairness, and those which raise the integrity of judicial process [36]. The unsettling thing comes next [38]:

" ... Achieving the appropriate balance between societal and individual concerns defines the essential character of abuse of process."

Nixon had nothing to do with trial fairness (this was hesitantly – because of lack of clarity in the submissions - recognised at [55]). It was about what can be called public policy fairness: whether in this case a plea bargain could be rejected by a more senior prosecutor. That sort of fairness does indeed involve a balance between societal interests and individual concerns. Instead of calling it public policy fairness, you could call it "the proper and fair administration of criminal justice" as Charron J does at [63]. My impression is that the conceptual framework that emerged from the precedents relied on in Nixon wrongly equates substantial fairness with administrative fairness.

The placing of trial fairness (that is, not public policy fairness) in the first category of abuse of process and within the balancing exercise was purportedly illustrated at [39-40] by reference to a case concerning whether requiring the defendant to undergo a third trial after two juries had failed to agree was an abuse of process. That case, R v Keyowski, 1988 CanLII 74 (SCC), [1988] 1 S.C.R. 657, was really about public policy fairness. There was no suggestion that a third trial there would not itself be a fair trial.

It is easy to confuse trial fairness with public policy fairness. I suggested that the Privy Council did this in Boolell v The State (Mauritius) [2006] UKPC 46, noted here on 18 October 2006.

Canada recognises that the defendant's right to a fair trial is an absolute right, not subject to balancing: for example R v Ahmad, 2011 SCC 6, discussed here on 22 February 2011. This makes the framework of analysis set out in Nixon rather misleading.

Aside from that difficulty, Nixon makes some useful points about the scope of prosecutorial discretion and its relationship with the court's duty to prevent an abuse of process.

I should add that while a balancing of competing interests will determine whether public policy supports a finding of abuse of process, a balancing of competing interests will not determine whether a trial was or would be fair. Yes, balancing of subsidiary rights may be required in order to resolve an issue, but once that balancing is done the result must be assessed for compliance with the defendant's right to a fair trial. An illustration is R v H [2004] UKHL 3, at [36], concerning whether a trial could be fair without disclosure of the identity of a witness.

Furthermore, abuse of process as originally conceived was thought to cover a relatively narrow field of wrongs, but it has since been recognised that it is a more general concept. Once one adds within its scope the issue of trial fairness, this extended application is evident. Any substantial miscarriage of justice can be said to have caused trial unfairness and so be an abuse of process. That includes anything that would give rise to a successful appeal against conviction. More interesting is the choice of remedy once such an error has been identified. Can it be put right by a warning to the jury? Should it result in exclusion of evidence that otherwise would have been admissible? Or, most drastically, should the proceedings be stayed? Different forms of decision process apply to the choices. When a judge has to decide whether to warn a jury, or to exclude evidence, the decision is reached by the well known weighing of probative value against risk of illegitimate prejudice. When the choice is between warning the jury and staying the proceedings, the decision turns on whether there would be an unacceptable risk of an unfair trial, and that is not a balancing exercise. When the choice is between excluding tainted evidence and staying the proceedings, the decision is one of public policy balancing. I have discussed this in more detail in "The Duty to Prevent an Abuse of Process by Staying Criminal Proceedings".

What price access to justice?

Today our new Legal Services Act 2011 comes into force, just as we are digesting Lady Hale's Sir Henry Hodge Memorial Lecture, "Equal Access to Justice in the Big Society". There is thoughtful comment on this lecture at UKSCblog on 30 June 2011 by Anita Davies.

Our legal aid system is said to cost too much, and the government seeks to reduce what it calls a "$402 million dollar gap in the legal aid budget".

Of course this "gap" is the difference between what provision of legal aid has actually cost and what the government would like it to cost. It is, if you like, a budgeting aspiration. If we were a wealthier country, the cost of legal aid would be of no concern. I state that truism to emphasise that the government's concern is fiscal.

I am just focusing on the money here because it is singled out as a government goal. Other goals have been addressed in the new legislation, and these concern the quality of legal representation. There is nothing wrong with that. One of the ways by which the government intends to improve the quality of legal representation is by increasing the quantity of criminal work handled by officers of the Public Defence Service. Again, I see nothing wrong with that. In fact I think it is a miracle that someone persuaded the previous government that public money should be spent on training lawyers.

One of the sources of legal aid costs in criminal cases is, as Lady Hale points out, the large amount of work that is required of lawyers at the early stages of even cases that are not particularly serious. Case management and its associated workloads have not proven to have saved money.

On the other hand (this is me again, not Lady Hale) there seems to be no shortage of lawyers who are willing to do legal aid work. The obvious cost-saving strategy would be to decrease legal aid rates of pay. This would deter some lawyers from any involvement with legal aid, but new lawyers would step in to fill this "gap". They would, thanks to the quality of representation safeguards, be fit for the job. Theoretically anyway.

That would satisfy people who think lawyers earn too much money. Perceptions of lawyers' pay are probably exaggerated by the publicity given to some extreme examples. But even those lawyers who have received large legal aid remuneration have worked very hard for it. Against the median pay received by legal aid lawyers, once outliers are ignored, one would have to weigh the time spent, the stress of the work, the office overheads, and the risks of complaints of negligence made by disaffected former clients, before deciding whether lawyers are paid too much.

The real problem may be that the government has an unrealistic expectation of how small the budget for legal aid can be.