Page 3443 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 13 October 1993
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On occasions, I am advised, pre-sentence reports can take some time to prepare. For a person not in custody, I am advised that reports may take anything up to six weeks or more to prepare. That is no great burden when someone is not in custody; they are not sweating on the document to arrive, at least in the sense of their liberty being deprived. Not infrequently, I understand, the period of waiting for a pre-sentence report when a person is in custody can range between one and two weeks. That is the advice given to me by practitioners in the ACT. Consider the situation of a person who is sitting in a gaol cell who, obviously, wants to get out and who is waiting for a pre-sentence report which may free him or her. That person, I think, is entitled to some expedition, particularly if the result of the report is that the judge or magistrate decides not to impose a sentence of imprisonment.
I think, Madam Speaker, that there ought to be the flexibility for a court to order a pre-sentence report in certain circumstances. The circumstances I propose here are where the defendant has indicated that he or she proposes to plead guilty to the offence. There is no question in these circumstances that a person who is innocent or a person who proposes to plead that they are innocent is subject in any way to a preliminary verdict of the court. They are not going to be prejudged in any way. This person is prepared to admit that he or she is guilty, and therefore it is appropriate that the process of getting a pre-sentence report and preparing for the day in court where the sentence is imposed be begun. Without this amendment a person will have to spend some time in a cell waiting for the pre-sentence report, or it will be incumbent on the people preparing pre-sentence reports to do so on the spot; to have a report available on the spot to deliver to the court almost instantaneously.
I am advised by the Attorney that that is often the case. Often they can prepare a report and deliver it orally to the court, but in those circumstances presumably the court will not want to order a pre-sentence report in advance. It will rely on the capacity of the pre-sentencing authorities to deliver the pre-sentence report orally on that occasion. I think, Madam Speaker, that we have to put some faith in the courts to exercise the power conferred by this amendment on occasions when it is actually desirable. Members of the Law Society have written to all of us in this chamber, I think, and have urged strongly that there be that capacity for the court to order a pre-sentence report before the sentence is to be delivered, before the verdict is reached, so that there is a capacity not to leave somebody sitting in a gaol cell for an unnecessarily long period.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (4.04): The Government will not be supporting this amendment; but it is, I have to acknowledge, a fairly fine point. We could waver and go one way or the other. The Law Society indicated support for amendments along the lines of Mr Humphries's proposal. The advice that I have received is that the cases where there is a long delay usually involve very regular clients, where it is pretty certain that the outcome will be one form of custodial sentence or another. Often the pre-sentence report may take quite some time. Everything that can be done is done to try to limit the period, but it is accepted as a given that there will be a period of imprisonment. Where it is a finer question, Corrective Services do endeavour to meet, and I am advised that they do meet, the deadlines and to get, if needs be, an oral pre-sentence report in a very short time.
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