Monday, December 11, 2006

The balance of probabilities

Sometimes, cases that are not quite interesting enough to warrant a blog entry here, nevertheless contain dicta that are worth noting.

Such a case is Sharma v DPP and others (Trinidad and Tobago) [2006] UKPC 57 (30 November 2006). The relatively uninteresting bit of the case is its recognition that a prosecutorial decision to file criminal charges can be subject to judicial review. Here, however, there was insufficient evidence of official misconduct to warrant leave being given to institute review proceedings. While there are some examples of successful reviews of decisions not to prosecute, there is, according to the Privy Council, no English case where a decision to prosecute has been reviewed.

One can understand that absence of example, because the more appropriate recourse would be an application for a stay of proceedings on the grounds that to continue with the prosecution would be an abuse of process.

However, the interesting point I wish to draw attention to in this case concerns what is usually called the civil standard of proof: proof on the balance of probabilities. At para 14 of their joint judgment, Lords Bingham and Walker quoted with approval an English Court of Appeal case, R(N) v Mental Health Review Tribunal (Northern Region) [2005] EWCA Civ 1605, [2006] QB 468 at para 62:

“… the more serious the allegation or the more serious the consequences if the allegation is proved, the stronger must be the evidence before a court will find the allegation proved on the balance of probabilities. Thus the flexibility of the standard lies not in any adjustment to the degree of probability required for an allegation to be proved (such that a more serious allegation has to be proved to a higher degree of probability), but in the strength or quality of the evidence that will in practice be required for an allegation to be proved on the balance of probabilities.”

The standard of proof on the balance of probabilities is frequently used in criminal law in relation to issues such as proof of the defence of insanity, proof of the admissibility of evidence, and proof of an issue by the defence where a statute specifies that that is the standard. It is also applied, exceptionally, to some findings of fact at sentencing, for example proof that specified property was the proceeds of offending.

In some cases the courts have said that the civil standard has the advantage of flexibility: where the issue is a serious one, the standard increases, tending to become akin to proof beyond reasonable doubt for really serious issues. That, it may now be seen, is the wrong way to look at what is going on; the standard is not increased, rather, more cogent evidence is required to satisfy proof on the balance of probabilities, as the issue becomes more serious.

What, one may wonder, is the difference? Well, imagine a case where, at sentencing, the judge has to decide whether certain property represents the proceeds of criminal offending. If it does, a fine may be imposed to represent the value of those proceeds. An illustration is s 39(1)(b) of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 1978[NZ]. In this context, the “fine” is a means of depriving the offender of the benefit of his offending, rather than a punishment, so the civil standard of proof here is appropriate. Nevertheless, the issue is a serious one, especially where the property is valuable and loss of its value may have an adverse effect on innocent people. In the absence of an explanation for how he acquired the property lawfully, the court will be entitled to infer that it was indeed obtained with the proceeds of offending. That may be the ordinary and natural inference, although evidence for it may be slight. It may be a matter of common sense, rather than actual proof. On the other hand, the offender may provide evidence that, for example, at the relevant time he had recently inherited money which he used to pay for the property in question. Unlikely though that explanation may be, he may nevertheless be able to provide cogent evidence in support of his assertion.

Here, if (as is the case) the standard does not increase but the requirement for cogency does, the offender may well be able to establish, on the balance of probabilities, that he did buy the property with inherited money. And, similarly, the prosecution, having a common sense inference but little evidence to back it up, would fail to establish its case on the balance of probabilities. If, however, the seriousness of the issue meant that the standard of proof increased, then, notwithstanding the cogency of his evidence that he inherited the money, the court might still find that the more common sense inference prevailed: while he could establish lawful purchase to a likelihood of, say 51%, he could not reach the higher standard that the circumstances required.

It will be important to get judges to see the difference in these approaches to the meaning of the balance of probabilities. The difference is rather subtle. If the cogency of the required proof increases to a likelihood of, say, 60% in favour, why isn't that an increase in the standard of proof? "Balance" of probabilities suggests a more even contest. Nevertheless, the focus appears to be on the cogency of the evidence for each competing proposition, not on some imaginary shifting standard of proof.

[Update: The European Court of Human Rights rejects the English approach and holds that the strength of the evidence needed to meet the standard of proof does not change with the seriousness of the issue: Saadi v Italy [2008] ECtHR 179 at 140.]

Monday, December 04, 2006

Attempting to conspire

A good example of a policy decision about the scope of criminal law comes from the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Dery [2006] SCC 53 (23 November 2006). At issue was whether there should be an offence of attempting to conspire to commit an offence. There was no legislative provision determining this question, so it concerned the scope of the common law.

The Court held unanimously that there is no offence of attempting to conspire: acts preceding conspiracy are not sufficiently proximate to a substantive offence to warrant criminal sanction.

This decision highlights the meaning of “agreement” in the context of conspiracy. A criminal conspiracy is an agreement to commit an offence. Imagine two people, A and B, who discuss committing an offence; A is very keen that they should do so, but B wants more time to decide and tells A that he will send him a text message about this later. B leaves A and later decides that, yes, he will agree to commit the proposed offence with B, so he sends him a text message to that effect. However, the message is never received by A.

Here, B has tried to agree with A to commit the offence. He has done what A expects him to do to agree. He believes they have an agreement. Should B be guilty of attempting to conspire with A? His position is different from that of A, who, not having received any communication from B, does not believe they have reached agreement, although he hopes they have. A would not be guilty of conspiracy with B.

While it might be acceptable, in circumstances like this, to hold B guilty while A escapes liability, the legal concept of agreement as a combination of minds prevents this. The law looks at potential harm as the justification for imposing criminal liability, and for conspiracy it is the harm that arises from the combination of minds, directed at the commission of an offence, that warrants criminal sanction. While, in the hypothetical discussed here, B’s state of mind is that of a conspirator, the danger he poses is lessened because A is unaware of B’s agreement. It is often said that a person is not to be punished for his thoughts alone, and in the absence of a combination of minds B’s individual liability must depend on whether he does any other act which is sufficiently proximate to the commission of a substantive offence to make him liable for the attempt to commit that offence.

We are, of course, focusing on liability for an attempt to conspire. It should not be thought that A will escape all liability, for consideration will have to be given to incitement. It may be that A is liable for inciting B to commit the crime which was the objective he discussed with B. Further questions arise here, concerning what “inciting” involves. If it is no more than trying to arouse another person’s interest in committing an offence, then A would be liable whatever B decided; but, if inciting requires the actual arousal of that interest in the mind of the other person, then A is only liable if B (as he did in the above hypothetical) becomes interested in the commission of the offence. This latter approach would be consistent with the harm-based justification for imposition of criminal liability. However, the common law interpretation is different: inciting does not require the creation of an interest in the commission of the offence, mere encouragement being sufficient. Adams on Criminal Law puts it this way, at CA66.17(2):

““Inciting” means to urge or spur on by encouragement, persuasion, or coercion. See Burnard v Police [1996] 1 NZLR 566; R v Tamatea (2003) 20 CRNZ 363, and the following decisions at common law on the meaning of the term in the inchoate offence of incitement: Invicta Plastics Ltd v Clare [1976] RTR 251; R v Hendrickson [1977] Crim LR 356; R v Fitzmaurice [1983] QB 1083; R v James (1985) 82 Cr App R 226; Race Relations Board v Applin [1973] QB 815.”

A leading New Zealand case on incitement, consistent with this statement of the law, is R v Schriek [1997] 2 NZLR 139; (1996) 14 CRNZ 449; 3 HRNZ 583 (CA). The position may therefore be summarised as follows: criminal liability requires that the accused caused harm, and as far as conspiracy is concerned the minimum harm needed for liability is, consistent with the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Dery, the existence of an agreement to commit an offence. Such an agreement does not exist without communication between the two parties to it (or, where there are more than two parties, between at least two of them). But, where incitement is concerned, the necessary degree of harm has been held to arise from mere encouragement, whether or not an interest in offending is aroused. This inconsistency in policy will require attention.

Monday, October 30, 2006

November hiatus

Its time for a vacation! Blog entries will resume in December. 

Perceptions of bias

Despite their almost constant preoccupation with the fairness of trials, some senior appellate courts still have difficulty in appreciating what fairness means. Last week, the European Court of Human Rights corrected a House of Lords decision in a case where the fairness of a trial was critical: Martin v United Kingdom [2006] ECHR 890 (24 October 2006).

In Martin, the accused (the applicant in the ECHR) had been tried by a Court Martial in Germany, although he was a British civilian. He came within the jurisdiction of the Court Martial because he was visiting a family member who was in the military at a base in Germany, at the time when the alleged offending, a murder, occurred. The jurisdictional arrangements complied with United Kingdom legislation. The German authorities had waived jurisdiction, and the Court Martial convened under UK law.

Characteristics of the military court that were important were that a superior officer presided over the 7 member tribunal, and only two members were civilians (from the United Kingdom).

The House of Lords had approached the issue of trial fairness by asking whether there had been any unfairness which might have rendered the verdict unsafe: see the extract from Lord Hope’s speech, quoted by the ECHR at para 20 of Martin. The error of this approach is the emphasis on pragmatism at the expense of formalism.

Fairness requires absence of bias, and even people who are “obviously” guilty - so that pragmatism requires conviction - must be tried by a court that is not biased against them - the formal requirement of fairness. The ECHR pointed out in para 42 of Martin that there are two aspects to impartiality: the tribunal must be subjectively free of bias, and there must be sufficient procedural guarantees to exclude any legitimate objective doubt about that.

The abstract jurisdictional criteria established in legislation were not a sufficient guarantee of absence of actual or perceived bias (para 44), as the issue had to be determined in the circumstances of each case. Here, the structure and procedure of the applicant’s Court Martial were sufficient to raise a legitimate fear as to its lack of independence and impartiality. The judgment does not particularise the evidence that supported this conclusion, but, interestingly, it holds that here, even the presence of a Vice-Judge Advocate General (a senior judge appointed by the Lord Chancellor, who could give the tribunal binding directions on the law) was insufficient: he did not have influence and involvement in the tribunal proceedings sufficient to guarantee the independence and impartiality of the applicant’s court-martial (para 52).

The ECHR declared a breach of Article 6 (the right to trial by a fair and independent tribunal) and awarded damages to the applicant. Subject to an appeal to the Grand Chamber, the conviction will be quashed pursuant to domestic law: Randall v R [2002] 1 WLR 2237, 2251 (PC): “The right to a fair trial is one to be enjoyed by the guilty as well as the innocent, for a defendant is presumed to be innocent until proved to be otherwise in a fairly conducted trial.”

Unfortunately, the judgment in Martin is insufficiently detailed to dispel some doubts about its correctness. If this Court Martial was unfair to the civilian accused, would the same proceedings have been unfair to an accused who viewed them a soldier? If the test for this sort of bias is whether an objective observer would have concerns about the fairness of the proceedings, should that observer be conceptualised as if he were in the military, or should he be a civilian? Should this characteristic of the observer change according to whether the proceedings are against a soldier or a civilian?

It may be that, in the circumstances of this case that are not revealed in the judgment, even an accused who was in the armed services would have had legitimate objective concerns about the fairness of the proceedings because of the dominance of the superior officer who presided.

Friday, October 27, 2006

"Perverse" acquittal, or "conscience" verdict?

One of the things that keeps appellate courts busy is the tendency of judges to overlook the fundamentals of the law. I noted one such fundamental in commenting on R v Wanhalla on 25 August 2006: the jury’s power to perversely acquit an accused means that it would be wrong for the judge to instruct the jury that they “must” convict if they find the case proved beyond reasonable doubt.

This very point was made yesterday by the Supreme Court of Canada: R v Krieger [2006] SCC 47 (26 October 2006). The Court ordered a retrial because, in directing the jury that they must convict, the judge had deprived the accused of the right to trial by jury. Except where the judge directs them to acquit, the verdict must be that of the jury. Depriving the accused of trial by jury was necessarily a miscarriage of justice and required the quashing of the conviction.

The Court approved the views to this effect of Sir Patrick (subsequently, Lord) Devlin in his book “The Judge” (1979), pp 142-143 and 157. He said, at 157, that it doesn’t matter how obvious it may be to the judge that the accused is guilty, the verdict must be that of the jury, and he called this, in an italicised passage, “the first and traditional protection that the law gives to an accused”. The second protection is that, on appeal, a conviction will be quashed if the judges find a “lurking doubt” that they consider the jury has overlooked. Devlin added: “…the second is an addition to the first and not a substitute for it.”

In Krieger, reference was made to Lord Mansfield’s observation in R. v. Shipley (1784), 4 Dougl. 73, 99 E.R. 774, at p. 824:

“It is the duty of the Judge, in all cases of general justice, to tell the jury how to do right, though they have it in their power to do wrong, which is a matter entirely between God and their own consciences.”

I add that readers of Geoffrey Robertson’s “The Justice Game” (1998) will recall his remark that “[t]his remains the most significant feature of English criminal law.” The rule that the decision to convict can only be made by the jury operates, especially in politically-motivated prosecutions, to ensure that “the only enemies of the State who are put in prison are enemies of the people as well.”

That misdirections of this kind should occur reminds us that judges must not be allowed to lose sight of the fundamentals. See also my comments on R v Wang, blogged on 14 February 2005.


[Update: in 2015 Lord Judge referred to perverse verdicts as constitutional safeguards against barbaric laws in a discussion with Chief Justice Roberts on the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the first issue of Magna Carta, available here on YouTube: view from time setting 37:58.]

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

"Unfair to try" or "to try unfairly"?

Boolell v The State (Mauritius) [2006] UKPC 46 (16 October 2006) illustrates the difference between the questions, (i) whether the trial was, or would be, fair, and (ii) whether it would be fair to put the accused on trial. The case also illustrates how easy it is to confuse these questions.

In Mauritius, the right to a fair trial is expressed, in s 10(1) of the Constitution, in a phrase giving the right to a “fair hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial court established by law”. This has given rise to the question whether an accused can only complain of delay if it has adversely affected his right to a fair hearing. (In contrast, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, s 25(b), isolates the right to trial without undue delay, from the separate right to a fair hearing in s 25(a)).

This question, which also arises under Art 6(1) of the ECHR, was resolved by the House of Lords in Attorney General's Reference (No 2 of 2001) [2003] UKHL 68, [2004] 2 AC 72, where it was held that a breach of the right to a hearing without undue delay can be established without the accused having to show that the trial would be unfair. Consequences of a breach of each right need not, therefore, be the same. In Boolell the Privy Council noted that Lord Bingham in Attorney-General’s Reference (No 2 of 2001) had “quoted with approval the aphorism of Hardie Boys J in the New Zealand case of Martin v Tauranga District Court [1995] 2 NZLR 419, 432: "The right is to trial without undue delay; it is not a right not to be tried after undue delay."” That is to say, undue delay does not give rise to a right not to be tried at all.

On the question of remedies, the Privy Council in Boolell followed Attorney-General’s Reference (No 2 of 2001), holding that a stay of proceedings is not appropriate unless (a) there can no longer be a fair hearing, or (b) it would otherwise be unfair to try the accused (para 31).

I have emphasised the word “otherwise” here to make the point that trial unfairness is only a subset of the set of occasions where it would be unfair to try the accused. In para 38 of Boolell, Lord Carswell, delivering the judgment of their lordships, confuses this point. He deals with a submission that the trial was unfair by applying criteria relevant to fairness in the “otherwise” sense. The “test” – as Lord Carswell called it - as laid down by Lord Bingham at para 25 of Attorney-General’s Reference (No 2 of 2001), is:

“25. The category of cases in which it may be unfair to try a defendant of course includes cases of bad faith, unlawfulness and executive manipulation of the kind classically illustrated by R v Horseferry Road Magistrates' Court, Ex p Bennett [1994] 1 AC 42, but Mr Emmerson contended that the category should not be confined to such cases. That principle may be broadly accepted. There may well be cases (of which Darmalingum v The State [2000] 1 WLR 2303 is an example) where the delay is of such an order, or where a prosecutor's breach of professional duty is such (Martin v Tauranga District Court [1995] 2 NZLR 419 may be an example), as to make it unfair that the proceedings against a defendant should continue. It would be unwise to attempt to describe such cases in advance. They will be recognisable when they appear. Such cases will however be very exceptional, and a stay will never be an appropriate remedy if any lesser remedy would adequately vindicate the defendant's Convention right.”

Lord Bingham is not here talking about cases where the trial would be unfair. Lord Carswell’s slip highlights the fact that criteria for determining the fairness of a hearing have yet to be established. My view is that the fairness of a hearing is to be determined by whether it would involve a biased determination of the facts, or an inaccurate application of the law to the facts. Delay may give rise to an unfair trial if it results in the unavailability of witnesses or evidence that could assist the defence. The matters relied on by counsel for the appellant in Boolell, para 38, seem not to involve delay but rather to focus on aspects of the actual conduct of the trial (its length, its interruptions, restrictions imposed on the conduct of the defence, and comments made by the judge that suggested bias). The Privy Council may well have been correct to conclude that, in the circumstances of this case, these did not amount to trial unfairness. In holding that the appellant’s right to a trial within a reasonable time had been breached (para 37), the appropriate remedy was the declaration of the breach and the quashing of the sentence of imprisonment, with a fine being substituted, although complexities concerning how the quantum should be calculated are not explored.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

NZ criminal law may be fair!

Readers of these blogs will be pleased to see that criticisms of Moloney v New Zealand (see blog entry for 3 May 2006, and the article developed from that, “A little unfairness goes a long way” [2006] NZLJ 210) turned out to be essentially the reasons that an appeal from that decision was allowed today: New Zealand v Moloney [2006] FCAFC 143 (5 October 2006).

The Full Court (5 judges) of the Australian Federal Court held that the judge had been wrong to conclude that differences, as between New Zealand and Australia, in rules of procedure and evidence concerning the conduct of criminal trials, permitted the conclusion that a trial in New Zealand would be unfair. Overruling him, the Full Court made the following points:

  • The close relation between New Zealand and Australia, reflected in the abbreviated extradition procedure which is analogous to that which applies within Australia, permits an assumption of trial fairness in New Zealand (paras 2, 21, 22, 36, 37).

  • The approach to warning juries in cases concerning historical allegations of sexual abuse is not significantly different as between Australia and New Zealand: both have the objective of a fair trial, and both recognise that warnings must be tailored to the circumstances of the trial. It was wrong to assume that a judge in New Zealand would not give a warning (212, 215, 216, 219, 221, 222, 224, 226).

  • As far as trials involving multiple complainants are concerned, it is a matter for the trial judge in New Zealand to decide whether severance is appropriate or whether similar fact evidence is admissible. Such differences as there are between the laws of Australia and New Zealand on these points is little more than a different formulation of the judge's discretion to exclude unfairly prejudicial evidence. Conclusions about the likelihood of joint trials were unwarranted at this stage (228, 229, 231).

It has been announced that the unsuccessful respondents in this case will seek leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia. [Update: on 16 October 2006 the High Court of Australia declined leave to appeal.]
 

Challenging detention pending bail

 A prompt and automatic opportunity to challenge the lawfulness of detention is a key provision to prevent arbitrary detention and to protect the person against the risk of ill-treatment and abuse of power by officials: McKay v United Kingdom [GC] [2006] ECHR 820 (3 October 2006). This is distinct from the opportunity to apply for bail, which must also be afforded within a reasonable time. If the person is arbitrarily detained, he must be released immediately and no question of his being encumbered with bail obligations arises.

Sometimes people who are arrested are brought before judicial officers who lack the power to inquire into the lawfulness of detention. In McKay the Grand Chamber observed that this had occurred in some cases from Malta (para 37).

A question arises, for people in New Zealand, whether the Habeas Corpus Act 2001, which requires that these applications be made to judges of the High Court, complies with the equivalent right to that considered in McKay. This right, in Article 9 para 4 of the ICCPR, and in s 23(c) of the Bill of Rights Act 1990, the former being unspecific as to promptness, while the latter requires absence of delay. The risk of non-compliance with this right arises because High Court judges are not the judges before whom a person appears initially. Of course, once the High Court is aware of an application under the Habeas Corpus Act 2001, it gives the matter top priority (s 9), but a lapse of time may nevertheless occur.

For example, a person arrested on a Friday may not be brought before a court until Saturday when a community magistrate, District Court Registrar, or Justice of the Peace may be sitting. There may be no opportunity to provide legal advice other than through a duty solicitor. The person will, if held in custody, be remanded to the following Monday, when the judicial official will be a District Court Judge. Legal aid counsel may be assigned on that occasion, but in some cases a bail application will not be able to be heard. For example, a person who has a previous conviction for a drug dealing offence can only apply to the High Court for bail on a fresh drug dealing charge: Bail Act 2000, s 16. Some High Court Registries restrict bail applications to 2 afternoons a week, and not all High Courts in the country have judges available throughout the year.

There is thus the risk of breach of s 23(c) of the Bill of Rights:

23 Rights of persons arrested or detained

(1) Everyone who is arrested or who is detained under any enactment—
(a) Shall be informed at the time of the arrest or detention of the reason for it; and
(b) Shall have the right to consult and instruct a lawyer without delay and to be informed of that right; and
(c) Shall have the right to have the validity of the arrest or detention determined without delay by way of habeas corpus and to be released if the arrest or detention is not lawful.”


There is a difference here between the expression “without delay” (admittedly, more strict than is required by ICCPR), and the phrase in s 23(3) “as soon as possible”:

“(3) Everyone who is arrested for an offence and is not released shall be brought as soon as possible before a court or competent tribunal.”

In McKay, the ECtHR held, para 33:

“The judicial control on the first appearance of an arrested individual must above all be prompt, to allow detection of any ill-treatment and to keep to a minimum any unjustified interference with individual liberty. The strict time constraint imposed by this requirement leaves little flexibility in interpretation, otherwise there would be a serious weakening of a procedural guarantee to the detriment of the individual and the risk of impairing the very essence of the right protected by this provision (Brogan and Others v. the United Kingdom, judgment of 29 November 1988, Series A no. 145 B, § 62, where periods of more than four days in detention without appearance before a judge were in violation of Article 5 § 3, even in the special context of terrorist investigations).”

And at, para 34, the Grand Chamber emphasised the significant procedural point that review of the legality of detention must be automatic:

“The review must be automatic and cannot depend on the application of the detained person; in this respect it must be distinguished from Article 5 § 4 which gives a detained person the right to apply for release [for example, on bail]. The automatic nature of the review is necessary to fulfil the purpose of the paragraph, as a person subjected to ill-treatment might be incapable of lodging an application asking for a judge to review their detention; the same might also be true of other vulnerable categories of arrested person, such as the mentally frail or those ignorant of the language of the judicial officer (e.g. Aquilina v. Malta [GC], no. 25642/94, § 49, ECHR 1999 III).”

Periods of delay of more than four days between commencement of detention and review of the legality of the detention will be unlikely to meet international standards. There may be a need to extend powers of review, akin to habeas corpus applications, to the court of first instance, with corresponding enhancement, if necessary, of judicial training.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Going international

Strip searches that are not carried out in compliance with proper safeguards to protect the dignity of those being searched may attract remedies under international law. This occurred in Wainwright v United Kingdom [2006] ECHR 807 (26 September 2006), where the European Court of Human Rights awarded damages, which could not be obtained under domestic law.

Wainright concerned strip searches of visitors to a prison, carried out with the aim of preventing the entry of drugs. The officials who carried out the searches did not comply with rules that had been promulgated, and therefore they were not within the terms of Article 8, para 2, of the European Convention on Human Rights as being “necessary in a democratic society”. In reaching this conclusion the European Court noted that domestic law in the UK, as held in the House of Lords decision in this case, did not provide a remedy for negligent breach of privacy. This deficiency amounted to a breach of Article 13 of ECHR and the Court awarded damages. The actual sums were fairly modest, the Court noting that it does not make aggravated or exemplary damages awards.

In other countries, issues of this sort may be dealt with by the United Nations Committee on Human Rights, if the relevant domestic law did not provide a remedy. The International Convention on Civil and Political Rights has provisions concerning the right not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 7), and the right to have one’s private life respected (Art 17). The First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR enables individuals claiming to be victims of violations of ICCPR rights to bring communications to the Human Rights Committee, which may, ultimately, “forward its views to the State Party concerned and to the individual” (Art 5 para 4). While this falls short of the corresponding declaration in Art 13 of ECHR that “Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority …”, and Art 41 “…the Court [ECtHR] shall, if necessary, afford just satisfaction to the injured party”, the forwarding by the Human Rights Committee of its views is a significant matter.

In Taunoa v Attorney-General [2006] NZSC 30 (12 April 2006) the Supreme Court granted leave to appeal to four appellants who claimed that, as prisoners, they had been subjected to breaches of s 9 and 27 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, the questions being whether there had been such breaches and, if so, what remedy was appropriate. One of the preconditions for bringing a communication to the Human Rights Committee is that domestic remedies, if any, must be exhausted. So, if unsuccessful before the Supreme Court, Taunoa may enter the international arena.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Negligent Barristers

Negligent barristers will – or should, despite their negligence – sit up straight and contemplate the Supreme Court’s removal of barristers’ immunity from suit for negligence: Chamberlains v Lai [2006] NZSC 70 (11 September 2006). The Court upheld the Court of Appeal decision in respect of civil cases, and extended it to include criminal cases.

Questions that this raises include:
  • What sort of conduct can attract this liability: voluntary service at a citizens’ advice bureau, duty soliciting by barristers, pro bono services, preliminary advice which does not lead to engagement as counsel, advice concerning plea, applications for bail, discovery and other preparatory work, legal research, conduct of courtroom representation?
  • Does a final decision by a court in the proceedings create an estoppel? To what extent would a collateral challenge to such a decision, as part of an action for negligence, amount to an abuse of process?
  • What is the standard of conduct that amounts to negligence? Does it, for example, equate to professional misconduct?
  • How should damages be assessed? If the client is guilty, does he have a duty to plead guilty at an early stage so as to mitigate any loss that might be suffered by endeavours (negligently conducted) to secure an acquittal?
  • Can the barrister enter into a contract with the client to limit liability for negligence?
  • Is this liability retrospective, and, if so, how far back does it extend?


The Supreme Court does not here seek to answer these questions, but rather recognises that developments in the law will be necessary as they are raised in particular cases.


Some indications of what may happen are given. In their joint judgment, Elias CJ, Gault and Keith JJ touched on issue estoppel, double jeopardy and abuse of process (paras 58-59), and concluded that it would be unwise to limit the potential use of the power to strike out proceedings to prevent an abuse of process (para 61). While a collateral challenge to a subsisting conviction may be an abuse of process, that will not always be so, and it is necessary to recognise that there may be exceptions (para 66). Tipping J disagreed on this point, to the extent of preferring a rule preventing collateral challenges to subsisting convictions (para 189), but Thomas J sided with the majority, citing his published views on the advantages of pragmatism over formalism (para 207).


Other matters for future consideration are mentioned in para 75:


" … Following the lifting of the immunity, it may well be necessary to consider whether reasons of legal policy impact upon liability for the negligent conduct of criminal proceedings. The extent to which the public interest requires redress to be obtained only or principally within the remedies provided by the criminal justice system itself will have to be considered. It will be necessary to consider too whether there are any limits to liability."


The standard of care was alluded to in para 78:


" … The application of liability "should not stifle advocates’ independence of mind and action in the manner in which they conduct litigation and advise their clients" [citing Moy v Pettman Smith [2005] 1 WLR 581, 599 per Lord Carswell]. Nor should the standard of care imposed be such as to force advocates into defensive lawyering which is contrary to the public interest in the fair and efficient operation of the criminal justice system. And establishing that negligence is causative of loss will not be easy in circumstances where the direct cause of loss is the imposition of an independent judgment."


Tipping J observed that an action for negligence could hardly succeed if an appeal against conviction had not succeeded (para 190):


"The decision of this Court in Sungsuwan v R [2006] 1 NZLR 730 makes it clear that the conduct of counsel, whether negligent or not, can afford grounds for setting aside a conviction if the Court of Appeal is of the view that there is a real risk that the verdict of the jury is unsafe. If that cannot be shown on appeal, counsel’s conduct could hardly later be found on the balance of probabilities to have led to an unsafe verdict. Real risk is a significantly lower standard to meet than more probable than not."


And he added, at para 200-201:


"The problems are likely to be more substantial in the criminal arena. Significant policy issues can be forecast. Should the law of torts award damages for negligence when the loss derives from a lawful period of imprisonment? Should the law impose on barristers a duty of care when other participants in the system, albeit for different reasons, owe no such duty or are immune from any liability for a breach?


"[201]Contribution problems may be substantial. Seldom is a conviction likely to be set aside solely on the grounds of counsel’s negligence. The Judge may have had some responsibility to guard the accused against certain types of negligence by counsel. While some of these points, and no doubt others, could be invoked in favour of retaining barristers’ immunity, I consider they are better addressed as facets of legal policy in the context where they truly belong, rather than as support for a blanket immunity for barristers."


So, we enter upon interesting times. And, potentially lucrative ones for insurance companies.