JUDGES AND LAWYERS HIT BACK

Parties needed more time. Mr Gray said his court had done everything
it could to reduce delays, including fast-tracking committal hearings
in major criminal trials.

Chief Justice Warren said she was surprised by Mr Overland's claims,
as the Supreme Court had given high priority to major criminal
trials, allocating eight judges to them over the past 18 months. She
said Mr Overland's views did not reflect the true picture of the
major criminal trials in the Supreme Court.

"The Supreme Court has responded rapidly to these trials once the
prosecution and defence were ready," she said. "This has been
achieved by a greater workload on judges and support from Government
by the appointment of two additional judges."

The Law Institute and the Criminal Bar Association backed Mr
Overland's view that there were "unacceptable delays" in trials and
reiterated the need for adequate resourcing to resolve the problem.
Law Institute chief executive John Cain said: "The Government has an
obligation to ensure that our justice system is properly resourced."

But both Mr Cain and Criminal Bar Association chairman Lex Lasry, QC,
made the point that some of the court delays were due to police
facing corruption charges themselves.

Mr Lasry said it was "outrageous" for Mr Overland to allege that
lawyers were involved in crime syndicates when not one lawyer had
been convicted of involvement in organised crime but police had been.

"The Criminal Bar Association is of the strong view that the courts,
the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and Victoria Legal
Aid are not being sufficiently resourced to deal with the workload
and the Government must deal with the issue. However, it is
unacceptable for (Mr) Overland to be making allegations about lawyers
and their alleged relationships with crime syndicates when he knows
that a substantial cause of the delay in several drug trials is the
corrupt relationship that has existed between some police who were
supposed to be investigating these matters and the people they should
have been investigating."

Leading criminal barrister Greg Lyon, SC, accused Mr Overland of
casting a slur upon criminal defence lawyers, adding that if police
did suspect corruption, they should investigate it.

Mr Overland's call came a day after drug trafficker Tony Mokbel was
convicted in the Supreme Court. Mokbel was arrested and charged in
August 2001 but his trial over the importation of two kilograms of
pure cocaine did not start until February this year.

Two detectives involved in investigating Mokbel's drug dealings were
charged and convicted with separate incidents of drug trafficking.
Mokbel's trial was further delayed because a key police informer
vanished overseas in breach of his parole conditions after receiving
a heavily discounted prison sentence on drug offences in return for
testifying against Mokbel.

Justice Bill Gillard yesterday described Mokbel, 40, as the principal
in the importation of about three kilograms of cocaine from Mexico
and the drug syndicate's "puppeteer pulling the strings". Mokbel will
be sentenced today and faces a maximum 25 years' jail, a $500,000
fine, or both.