R v Director of Public Publications, ex parte Lee
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 18 March 1999 |
| Date | 18 March 1999 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
Queen's Bench Divisional Court
Before Lord Justice Kennedy, Mr Justice Blofeld
Criminal procedure - prosecutor's duty of pre-committal disclosure
In cases triable only on indictment, there existed in the period between arrest and committal, a continuing duty on a responsible prosecutor to ascertain whether immediate disclosure was required in the interests of justice and fairness, in accordance with the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996.
The Queen's Bench Divisional Court, so held allowing an application for judicial review of the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service, on December 21, 1998, not to disclose unused material, prior to the committal for trial of Roger Lee on a charge of murder.
Mr James Turner, QC and Mr James Roberts for Mr Lee; Mr Jeremy Carter-Manning, QC and Mr Christopher Kinch for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY said that:
1 The 1996 Act considerably reduced the ability of the defence to take an active part in committal proceedings, so the need for disclosure prior to committal was also reduced.
2 Part 1 of the 1996 Act introduced a completely new regime in relation to disclosure. It replaced most if not all of the provisions of the common law from the moment of committal with a two-stage process set out in sections 3 and 7. The second stage only occurred in response to a defence statement.
3 The disclosure required by the 1996 Act was intended to be less extensive than would have been required prior to the 1996 Act at common law.
4 Although some disclosure might be required prior to committal, and thus prior to the period to which the Act applied, it would undermine the statutory provisions if the pre-committal discovery were to exceed the discovery obtainable after committal pursuant to the statute.
5 The 1996 Act did not specifically address the period between arrest and committal, and whereas in most cases prosecution disclosure could wait until after committal without jeopardising the defendant's right to a fair trial the prosecutor must always be alive to the need to make advance disclosure of material of which he was aware, either from his own consideration of the papers or because his attention had been drawn to it by the defence, and which he, as a responsible prosecutor, recognised should be disclosed at an earlier stage.
Examples canvassed before their Lordships were:
(a) previous convictions of...
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