Former DPP says action is needed to improve how cases are prosecuted as figures show conviction rate is lower in magistrate’s courts
JULIE CHUjulie.chu@scmp.com
PUBLISHED : Monday, 03 August, 2015, 5:38am
UPDATED : Monday, 03 August, 2015, 5:38am
Grenville Cross wants to see changes. Photo: Felix Wong
A former lead prosecutor says the Department of Justice should raise the qualification requirements for prosecutors in the magistrate’s courts as part of a push to address conviction rates that remain consistently lower than those of other courts.
Grenville Cross SC, who served as director of public prosecutions from just after the handover in 1997 until 2009, said the department should consider requiring prosecutors to hold a university degree, rather than hiring people with only secondary-school qualifications. He also said a staffing shortage had led to the department hiring out jobs to less experienced lawyers.
According to the department’s annual reports, the conviction-after-trial rate at magistrate’s courts was only 47 per cent in 2013, compared to the District Court and High Court at 79.8 and 67.3 per cent respectively in the same year.
What the department must do, Cross said, “is to restore quality control over its summary prosecutions, ensuring that all the private lawyers who prosecute its cases are suitably qualified, and it must also strengthen its own internal capacity to prosecute cases by urgently filling the 22 court prosecutors’ vacancies”.
The court prosecutor system was introduced in 1977, allowing secondary-school graduates to become prosecutors without attending university or law school. The department provides nine months of training once they join the service, and their main duties are to handle magistrate’s court cases that do not involve complex legal points.
Although the scheme earmarked 102 prosecutors for service in the magistrate’s courts, only 80 currently work in the seven courts at that level.
The last time the department recruited court prosecutors was in 2008. It hired 13, but eight of them have since resigned.
The department assigns government counsellors, who are all qualified lawyers, to handle complicated cases in the magistrate’s courts. District Court and High Court prosecutions are all handled by qualified lawyers.
DoJ must decide if … it is content to use the magistrate’s courts to train up new lawyers
GRENVILLE CROSS
In order to fill the staffing gap, the department in 2011 began operating a programme with the Bar Association and the Law Society, providing intensive prosecution training to lawyers with less than five years’ experience. Those who complete the course can then be assigned court prosecutors’ cases.
But Cross said that system was tantamount to the department using the court as a training ground for new lawyers, not an instrument of justice.
“DoJ must now decide if its primary role is to ensure, in the public interest, that its prosecutions are conducted to the highest standards, or whether it is content to use the magistrate’s courts to train up new lawyers.”
Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung has said the department has no plan to change the education requirements, which he said can attract talent from other disciplines.
Apart from handling cases at trial, Cross said court prosecutors needed to manage administrative work such as liaising with law enforcement agencies, handling bind-over requests and advising on appeals or sentence reviews.
Cross said prosecutors should be required to at least hold a degree, and the department should ease the career path for legally qualified court prosecutors to become government counsellors.
Eric Cheung Tat-ming, principal lecturer in law at the University of Hong Kong, agreed more training was needed as prosecutors faced many legal arguments even in magistrate’s courts.
He said court prosecutors should get legal education and professional training.
The department said it encouraged court prosecutors to pursue legal education. Of the 80 serving, 31 have obtained a postgraduate certificate in law, a bachelor of law degree or a degree of equivalent standing. Three have received professional training and six have obtained full legal qualification.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1845968/hong-kong-ex-chief-prosecutor-calls-higher-qualifications
