› State Supreme Court review of prosecutorial decisions
Administrative law
› Judicial review
› Prosecutorial discretion — amenability to review
Administrative law
› Jurisdictional error
› Limited grounds of review for statutory prosecutorial powers
Criminal law
› Prosecution
› Director of Public Prosecutions — power to take over and withdraw private prosecution
Quick Take
1Prosecutorial decisions — particularly decisions not to prosecute or to discontinue a prosecution — are not wholly insusceptible of judicial review in Australia, but are reviewable only in rare cases and on limited grounds such as bad faith (e.g. bribery), acting under the direction of another, or adherence to a rigid policy precluding prosecution of a class of offences
2Merits-based challenges to prosecutorial decisions — including challenges to the DPP's assessment of the prospects of conviction, the weight of evidence, or the public interest — do not constitute jurisdictional error and are not available grounds of judicial review, given the width of prosecutorial discretions and the nature of the public interest considerations informing their exercise
3The power conferred by s 22(1)(b) of the Public Prosecutions Act 1994 (Vic) to take over and withdraw a private prosecution is not subject to an obligation to afford procedural fairness to the person who instituted the private prosecution
