XN000022-1995-04-26 — Page 4

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Legal Department to improve briefing out system

The Legal Department welcomed the part of the Director of Audit's report published today (Wednesday) on the briefing out of prosecution work to private counsel, a spokesman for the department said today.

The spokesman said the report re-affirmed the importance of the briefing out system, which was introduced in 1964, and identified certain areas where there were room for improvement, mainly in relation to keeping of records and formalisation of procedures.

He said the Legal Department would study the report and recommendations carefully with a view to introducing improvements to the briefing out system.

On the amount of prosecution work briefed out to private counsel, the spokesman said it was always the department's intention to handle as much prosecution work in-house as practicable.

But the department was bound by the fact that it had to tackle an ever- rising amount of workload while the strength of Crown Counsel had not been increased correspondingly, he said.

"As the Director of Audit acknowledged in its report, 'whilst the total court days of the (Prosecutions) Division increased substantially by 40

per cent from 8,009 in 1984 to 11,206 in 1993, the establishment of Crown Counsel in the Division only increased by 11.7 per cent from 94 to 105 during the same period," the spokesman said.

Nevertheless, he said the department was always mindful to improve the briefing out system and had regularly reviewed its operation.

It had already taken steps since January this year to improve the briefing out procedures, he said.