Committal proceedings are only relevant when an accused person is charged with a more serious indictable offence.
In order for a more serious indictable offence to be heard by a higher court, it will need to be sent from a lower court by a process called a committal.
However, before a committal takes place, a case will need to go through what is called the committal process.
Committal Process
The committal process is an ongoing process which starts at the time the accused person first appears in court. Following the initial appearance, the prosecution will have to provide a brief of evidence to the accused person or defence. A brief of evidence is a copy of the statements and exhibits that it relies on, against the accused person, in relation to the offence/s.
Before, during and after this takes place, a lower court will continue to review the matter (at what are called committal mentions) in order to manage the progress of the case and, if necessary, make any decisions or directions for the prosecution and the accused person or defence to follow along the way.
After the prosecution brief is disclosed and the accused person or defence have had time to review it, the accused person or defence will need to decide how the committal should proceed. The accused person or defence will often indicate this decision to a Magistrate at a committal mention.
Types of Committal Proceedings
There are three ways that a committal can generally proceed:
- Registry committal;
- Full hand up committal; or
- A committal involving oral evidence from some or all prosecution witnesses.
A registry committal is an administrative process which doesn’t involve the parties going to court for a committal hearing. Instead, after defence have filed certain forms in the court registry, the court registry commits the matter up to a higher court administratively and without the parties being present.
A full hand up committal is a committal hearing where the statements that were contained within the brief of evidence are provided to the Magistrate and the defence indicates that it does not wish to cross-examine any of the prosecution witnesses. As such, in full hand up committals, prosecution witnesses do not attend court to give their evidence in person to the Magistrate. For the purposes of committal, their statements are considered to be their evidence.
When the Magistrate commits the matter to a higher court through a full hand up committal, an accused person is not required to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, but they are able to do so.
This type of committal is also referred to as a committal with cross-examination. For this type of committal to take place, the consent of the prosecution or an order of the court is required.
The purpose of this type of committal hearing is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence for an accused person to stand trial in a higher court.
If defence wish for this type of committal to take place, they will have to file and serve an application. The application sets out the specific witnesses they want to cross-examine and the topic areas that will be covered with the witness.
This application is heard by a Magistrate in a lower court. If the application is allowed, the case will usually be adjourned to another date for the committal hearing to take place.
At the committal hearing, and after the witnesses give their evidence and are cross-examined, if the Magistrate decides that there is enough evidence, they will commit the matter to a higher court. The accused person is not required to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty if this occurs, but they are able to do so.
If the Magistrate doesn’t think the prosecution has shown enough evidence, the Magistrate can dismiss the case. However, in special circumstances, or where more evidence is obtained, the prosecution may recommence the case at a later date.
Once the case is committed to a higher court, the prosecution has up to six months from the day the matter is committed to present the accused person’s charges in the higher court. This is done on document called an indictment. An indictment contains the charges against the accused person that the higher court will need to hear and determine. The same time period applies to all cases regardless of whether it was committed by registry committal, full hand up committal or committal with cross-examination.