LAWYERS HIT BACK AT CRIME CLAIMS

Melbourne lawyers have hit back at calls for pre-trial short cuts for
some high-profile criminal cases and police suggestions some lawyers
have become silent partners in crime.

Assistant Commissioner for Crime Simon Overland said today Victoria's
justice system was struggling with delays in bringing major criminal
cases to court, including those of gangland-related murders and the
drugs trial of Tony Mokbel.

But Victorian Criminal Bar Association chairman Lex Lasry, QC, said
resources were needed to support the judicial process and police
should focus on the "corrupt relationship" between some police and
criminals.

"The criminal bar association is of the strong view that the courts,
the office of the DPP and Victoria Legal Aid are not being
sufficiently resourced to deal with the workload and the government
must deal with the issue" he said.

Mr Overland earlier told The Age some lawyers had crossed the line and
had become silent partners in organised crime syndicates, a point
angrily denied by Mr Lasry.

"It is unacceptable for Assistant Commissioner 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," he said.

Mokbel, who Mr Overland said was "a person of interest" to the Purana
task force investigating Melbourne's underworld killings, disappeared
while on bail last week and was earlier this week convicted in
absentia of smuggling two kilograms of pure cocaine to Australia.

Mr Overland told The Age delays in major cases were frustrating
police, witnesses and prosecutors.

Nine victims of Melbourne's gangland killings were murdered while on
bail, four alleged hitman were accused of killing while on bail and
others were trafficking drugs while on bail to cover their legal bills.

"I think what we're seeing here is high-end organised crime cases that
are complex, that are full of a range of difficulties, that perhaps
put the current system under strain and there may be different ways to
deal with those matters," Mr Overland told journalists today.

"I think the whole issue of committal in these high-profile cases is
really an issue here, because they cause significant delay.

"It is important that accused people know the nature of the case that
is against them.

"I think there's better ways of actually achieving that other than
running through committal and perhaps that's a way of streamlining
some of the current processes."

In committal hearings, magistrates ascertain whether there is
sufficient evidence to put cases to trial.

Mr Overland said he believed Mokbel was alive and may have left
Australia.

While he would not comment specifically on Mokbel's bail, he said bail
granted because of judicial system delays caused problems for many
agencies.

"I don't think bail is the problem here. I think bail is a symptom of
broader systemic problems ... being the amount of time it takes us to
move these cases through the criminal justice system," he said.

"There's difficulties right across the system. There's difficulties
for corrections, there's difficulties for police, there's difficulties
for courts, for prosecutors, so I think the more quickly, the more
efficiently we can move matters through the system, I think the less
likely it is that bail will be an issue."

There might be other ways of streamlining the process, but Mr Overland
said the Director of Public Prosecutions needed greater flexibility to
directly present criminal matters to a court, avoiding the committal
process.

"We have tried in the past to directly present matters, and they have
been remitted back to the magistrates court for committal," he said.

"I think in some cases the director is in a good position to determine
that it's in the public interest that we simply proceed straight
through to trial, and that's really what ought to happen."