“All trials that were listed in 2020 will no longer proceed and administrative orders vacating these trials are in the process of being made,’’ the court’s criminal division administrator advised. “At this stage, it is anticipated that the court will resume hearing criminal trials in the first quarter of 2021.” Loading The County Court decision to effectively close its trial division for the rest of the year means that once existing delays within the system are taken into account, someone charged with a crime today is unlikely to have their matter heard for three years. “It is going to cause very significant problems for people on remand but it will also cause significant problems for victims, for other witnesses and families of accused people,’’ said Liberty Victoria’s Sam Norton, a partner with criminal law specialist firm Stary Norton Halphen. “If you are charged today, a trial in 2023 would almost be a best-case scenario.”

The COVID-19 shutdown is having a cascading impact through all levels of the Victorian court system. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video The most serious bottleneck is in the Magistrates Court, which has ceased all hearings other than urgent bail, remand and family violence cases. The court plans to shift those matters onto a video conferencing platform this week but the move is being hampered by technical difficulties. All committal hearings have been postponed, which will aggravate future trial delays in the County Court and Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has introduced a special provision to replace committal proceedings in homicide cases with preliminary hearings before judges and suspended all trials outside of Melbourne. The County Court plans to use the WebEx video platform to enable judges to deal with applications and plea hearings but, under Victoria’s social distancing laws, the court cannot convene a jury to decide a trial.

Mr Norton said juries played a “fundamentally important” role in the justice system but Liberty Victoria supported introducing the option for judge-only trials where an accused person consented to that process. The Law Council of Australia supports the use of judge-only trials in exceptional circumstances. Loading The use of judge-only trials to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 court shutdown was discussed this week during a video hook-up between federal Attorney-General Christian Porter and all state and territory attorneys general. The ACT has gone further than other jurisdictions by mandating, through its COVID-19 emergency response laws, that all criminal trials will proceed during the pandemic by judge alone. Mr Porter said the federal government was not considering a judge-only provision for Commonwealth matters. "The Commonwealth is working with jurisdictions to ensure critical jury trials for Commonwealth indictable offences could proceed during this period where required,'' he said.

In Victoria, the Department of Justice has since 2018 been reviewing the case for judge-only trials, in part to avoid the type of blanket suppression orders which prohibited all reporting of Cardinal Pell's trial until two months after the verdict was returned. Ms Hennessy confirmed she was considering a judge-only provision for Victoria in response to the coronavirus crisis. “The department is reviewing other jurisdictions and talking to stakeholders to determine the need here and I’ll carefully consider all the advice provided to me,’’ she said. The introduction of judge-only trials would be broadly welcomed by defence lawyers but resisted by some judges who do not want the additional responsibility of being the arbiters of guilt, as well as arbiters of the law, in criminal cases. Cardinal Pell was last week acquitted by a unanimous decision of the High Court and released from jail after a County Court jury found him guilty in December 2018 of child sex offences. Mr Norton warned against “kneejerk” law changes but said Cardinal Pell's case showed the difficulties faced by some defendants, particularly when charged with crimes as abhorrent as child sexual abuse, to receive a fair trial before a jury.