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19 U. Tas. L. Rev. 280 (2000)
Police Summary Prosecutions in Australia and New Zealand: Some Comparisons

handle is hein.journals/utasman19 and id is 286 raw text is: Police Summary Prosecutions in Australia and New Zealand: Some Comparisons DR CHRIS CORNS* A comparison of the role of the police in summary criminal proceed- ings in New Zealand and Australia reveals a number of significant similarities. Most notably, Australia and New Zealand are the only two countries in the common law world where members of the police force conduct the vast majority of criminal prosecutions in the lower courts. In the United States, Canada, Scotland and England, for ex- ample, summary criminal prosecutions are conducted by independent public prosecution authorities, similar to the system operating in most continental countries.1 Of particular note is the decision of the British government in 1985 to transfer the conduct of summary prosecutions in England from the police to the newly created Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The precise reasons why each of these countries has developed independent public prosecution systems vary between each jurisdiction but, as a general proposition, the prohibi- tion on the police conducting criminal prosecutions is based on the ideological and operational need to separate criminal investigative functions from prosecutorial functions to ensure, inter alia, independ- ence and impartiality in prosecution decision-making. This immedi- ately raises the question of why is it that New Zealand and Australia (apart from one jurisdiction) have retained this aspect of public prose- cutions whilst other jurisdictions have explicitly rejected this role for the police? * BA (Hons); LLB; LLM; PHD; Senior Lecturer School of Law and Legal Studies Latrobe University, Melbourne. This research was conducted during the writer's Outside Study Program for which he is indebted to La Trobe University. A draft of this article formed the basis of a paper the writer gave at a Conference History of Crime Policing and Punishment, Canberra, conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology 9-10 December 1999. Parts of that conference paper, which has not been published, is included in this article. 1 For a general overview see N Osnow and A Quinn, Criminal Justice Systems in Other Jurisdictions Research Paper prepared for the Runciman Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (1993). For Canada see P Bloos, 'The Public Prosecutions Model from Upper Canada' in (1989) 32 Criminal Law Quarterly 69-84. © Law School, University of Tasmania 2000

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