The High Court refused two judicial review applications challenging District Court decisions that denied further disclosure about the handling and analysis of biological samples in road-traffic prosecutions. The applicants had sought orders stopping their prosecutions, but the judgment did not determine the underlying charges or whether the analyses were carried out “as soon as practicable”.
Adam Thompkins and Martin Aronu were separately charged under road traffic legislation with driving while under the influence of an intoxicant to the extent that they could not properly control a vehicle. Thompkins provided a urine sample on 4 November 2006; Aronu provided a blood sample on 7 October 2006. The Medical Bureau of Road Safety reported drugs in both samples and alcohol levels below the legal limit. Certificates were issued about 13 weeks after Thompkins’s sample and about 11 weeks after Aronu’s.
The applicants requested information about the reasons for the intervals, steps taken during analysis and the samples’ custody and location. The prosecution disputed that there had been delay and said it could rely on statutory presumptions. The Bureau said it would not provide evidence by correspondence, but stated it was willing to make a witness available to the defence.
On 30 October 2008, the District Court refused the applications for further disclosure. The applicants then sought judicial review, arguing that the information was needed to challenge the statutory presumption that the Bureau had acted as soon as practicable, and that the District Court judge’s reasons were irrational.
O’Neill J held that the Bureau was not a party to either prosecution, so the District Court could not order it to disclose material. He also found the requests sought an inquiry to establish whether helpful evidence existed, rather than disclosure of evidence already held by the prosecution. Ordering that inquiry through disclosure would draw the court into investigation, a function reserved to executive agencies, the judgment said.
The judge noted that the applicants could call Bureau officials and cross-examine them about the timing of the certificates. He considered the Bureau’s correspondence showed willingness to assist, and concluded that the applicants had means to try to rebut the statutory presumption without a real impairment of their fair-trial rights.
On the irrationality claim, the judge found the evidence did not establish that the District Court had adopted the prosecution’s submissions in full. Saying its reasons were “grounded” on those submissions indicated, in his view, that the judge had accepted the applicants’ arguments and rejected the prosecution’s. The High Court refused the reliefs sought. It did not prohibit the prosecutions or quash the District Court decisions.