Director of public prosecutions
20 Director of public prosecutions
The director of public prosecutions must, before presenting an indictment or filing an application in the court, mark on it any applicable file number of the office of the director of public prosecutions.
Editor’s note—
Under the Acts Interpretation Act 1954, schedule 1, definition number, a letter is a number.
If the indictment contains only ex officio counts, the director of public prosecutions must state that fact on the indictment.
When presenting an indictment, the director of public prosecutions must give the proper officer of the court in which it is presented a written notice stating the Magistrates Court reference number, if any, for each charge in the indictment.
If the director of public prosecutions presents an indictment against an accused person and the charges in the indictment differ from the committal charges, the director of public prosecutions must give written notice of the differences to the following—
the accused person or the accused person’s lawyer;
if the accused person is in the custody of the chief executive (corrective services), the chief executive (corrective services);
the proper officer of the court in which the indictment is presented.
Examples of how charges in an indictment may differ from the committal charges—
• Another charge may be added.
• A committal charge may be omitted.
• A circumstance of aggravation may be added to or omitted from a committal charge.
• Another charge may be substituted for a committal charge.
The notice must state the committal charges and how the charges in the indictment differ from the committal charges.
If the director of public prosecutions decides not to present an indictment against an accused person who has been committed for an offence, the director of public prosecutions must, as soon as possible after making the decision, give written notice of it to the following—
the accused person or the accused person’s lawyer;
if the accused person is in the custody of the chief executive (corrective services), the chief executive (corrective services);
the proper officer of the court that committed the accused person;
the proper officer of the court to which the accused was committed.
Any act or decision that must or may be done or taken under this rule by the director of public prosecutions may be done or taken by—
the deputy director of public prosecutions; or
a Crown prosecutor.
Notice of an act done or decision taken by the director of public prosecutions, deputy director of public prosecutions or a Crown prosecutor may be given by a member of the staff of the office of the director of public prosecutions.
In this rule—
committal charge means a charge for an offence for which the accused person was committed.
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