The association that represents barristers in the ACT has voiced its concern about politicians interfering in the legal process.
The ACT Bar Association's comments come after the revelation Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury had called the territory's acting Director of Public Prosecutions, Anthony Williamson, to a meeting to ask him about cases of alleged sexual assault that had not been taken to court.
At the time, Mr Williamson was waiting to hear if he had been promoted from deputy in the DPP's office to the top job. He was told last week that he hadn't got the job.
Mr Williamson has not commented but other lawyers familiar with the situation have told The Canberra Times that the acting-DPP, who is meant to be independent of politics, felt he was being pressured to take more cases to court even though he felt that the evidence wasn't strong enough for a reasonable chance of a conviction.
The statement by the barristers' association says: "The ACT Bar Association trusts that the office of DPP remains an independent body, free from any influence from any external areas."
Cases about whether to prosecute for crime are meant to be taken independently of politicians. The ACT's Director of Public Prosecutions Act 1990 says: "The director makes prosecutorial decisions on a professional basis independent of political influence or control. The director has complete independence in relation to the operations of his office."
On Monday, the Attorney-General "emphatically denied" that his meeting with Mr Williamson amounted to improper political pressure.
Mr Rattenbury told The Canberra Times on Monday: "I received a series of pieces of feedback that raised questions about the rate of discontinuance of the DPP. As a minister, I think it's my responsibility to look into matters like that when they come my way.
"I think it's my job to ensure accountability and to raise those questions and to understand the response of the DPP. I'm very conscious of the independence of the DPP.
"Certainly I did not give the DPP any directive on how they should approach the matters."
In its statement, the ACT Bar Association says that it didn't know the details of the situation surrounding the meeting but added: "We note that the independence of the DPP is of fundamental importance to proper functioning of the criminal justice system in the ACT.
"It is why the office of the DPP exists as a statutory appointment independent of government, and why the DPP is answerable to the Legislative Assembly and not the executive.
"It is not appropriate for any person or organisation, inside or outside of government, to play a role in influencing, guiding or directing the ACT DPP, as to do so would cut across the independence of that office.
"The decision to prosecute must be made solely on an assessment of the evidence and the likelihood of a conviction."
Mr Rattenbury said on Monday that he wasn't putting pressure on the prosecutor. Rather, the meeting was "to understand the circumstances around the concerns that have been raised with me".
He did not say who had raised those concerns with him but there has been political pressure to raise the rate of convictions of people accused of sexual assault.
"The ACT government has been clear that we want to improve the justice system for people making allegations of sexual assault," Mr Rattenbury said, "and we're trying to do that in a way that protects fundamental principles such as the presumption of innocence while seeking to ensure that the legal process is not retraumatising for people making the allegations."
He also said that his concerns were not the reason that Mr Williamson wasn't promoted from deputy to the top job at the ACT Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Following the resignation of the previous head, Shane Drumgold, in August last year, Mr Rattenbury said he had ordered a recruitment process to identify a new director of public prosecutions.
An external recruitment company was engaged. An interview panel included the ACT's Justice and Community Safety Director-General Richard Glenn, a current director of public prosecutions from another jurisdiction, and an experienced former prosecutor.
"We wanted to find the best candidate, wherever they came from, whether that was a local, somebody from out of the jurisdiction," Mr Rattenbury said.
The decision was then taken by the ACT cabinet.
