Network Against Prohibition (NAP) - NT Chapter

Agency concerned: Office of Courts Administration

Name of person dealing with: Greg Shanahan

When last contacted: Approximately 2 months ago

When did the actions you complain of happen: ongoing

What relevant documentation do you have: Letters to Greg Shanahan, Letter from Greg Shanhan

What have you done to resolve the problem yourself: written to Greg Shanahan

Nature of complaint:

On the 14th of May 2002 a number of activists entered the legislative assembly of the Northern Territory to protest against the NT Government's "drug house" legislation. They were subsequently charged under section 61 of the NT Criminal code and found guilty by Magistrate Dick Wallace in June 2003, after a 16 day hearing in the Magistrate's Court.

5 of the activists were sentenced to jail and are currently out on bail as they appeal their conviction and/or sentence.

4 of the activists, Gary Meyerhoff, Stuart Highway, Michael Lambe and Robert Inder-Smith are appealing against both the conviction and the sentence. They are representing themselves and have been refused legal aid to appeal the conviction.

We have no funds to conduct our appeals.

It is impossible for us to appeal against our convictions without a copy of the transcript of the hearing in the magistrate's court.

Transcripts cost $7 per page* - but this is reduced to $1 per page on appeal. The transcript for the parliament invasion case is over 1000 pages long. We do not have the funds to purchase our own copy of the transcript.

We wrote to Greg Shanahan, the executive officer of courts administration and asked him for a free copy of that and other transcripts we require. Shanahan denied our request.

Shanahan offered us the use of an office at the Supreme Court and a computer on which we could view transcripts to prepare our case.

This is most unsatisfactory for a number of reasons:

1. The appellants are employed and some are also students

2. We are unable to dedicate time to our legal defences during working hours

3. We really need to have our own copy of the transcript to peruse at home to really be able to put the full effort into our legal arguments - the prosecution are afforded this luxury. We cannot have a fair hearing if we do not have our own copies of the transcripts.

We wrote to Greg Shanahan again, asking him to reconsider his decision not to give us free copies of transcripts we require. He has not replied to our letter.

Mr Shanahan did not reply to out first letter until we informed a Supreme Court Justice that we had written to Shanahan about the transcripts.

We have learnt that transcripts are recorded on audio tapes, and then if they are ordered they are typed up by a private company and they are then purchased either in hard copy or electronic format.

We have learnt that if you are committed to trial you receive a transcript of the committal hearing for free - we have had 2 of these emailed to us in pdf format.

We have seen with our very eyes that the Supreme Court have obviously purchased all of the transcripts - they have been typed up and they have them in electronic format. The prosecution have them and even the NT Government Solicitor Greg Macdonald has them, in fact he is the only person to provide us with any of the parliament invasion transcript albeit only a fraction.

We do not understand why the office of courts administration cannot email us copies of transcripts we require to enable us to have a fair hearing. They have paid for them, they have them, why can't they emial them to us.

If we had legal aid, they would purchase the transcripts. Because we are unrepresented - we have to pay for them ourselves.

*Transcripts are even more expensive for Supreme Court hearings and trials, starting at $9.63 per page. We cannot afford to buy the transcripts of our appeals and this further hinders us.

What do we want the ombudsman to do about it?

Tell the office of courts administration to email all of the transcripts that we require to napnt@bigpond.net.au immediately. Our appeal against conviction will be heard on the 15th, 16th and 17th of June so we have less than a week to prepare our arguments.

At the same time, the whole system of transcripts in court cases needs to be reviewed, particularly for unrepresented defendants.

The Justices also need to be educated as one Justice indicated to us that he did not know that we had to pay for the transcript.

We also were under the impression that defendants should not have to pay filing fees etc in criminal matters and that this is enshrined in law. If this is the case it is illegal for the courts administration staff to refuse to give us copies of the transcripts.

• AIVL
• Drug Information
  
• DrugSense
• Australian Drug News
• ENCOD/ICN
• Global Drug News
• More Links...