As part of the Review of Public Prosecution Services in New Zealand, the Ministry of Justice Secretariat was asked to provide the Independent Reviewer, John Spencer, with information on the operation of prosecution services in comparable jurisdictions.
The secretariat undertook extensive research on the public prosecution landscape in England and Wales, Canada, Australia, and Scotland. To ensure the accuracy of this document, contributions were sought from members of the public prosecution services in England and Wales, Canada and Australia. Scotland has experienced only minimal change to its prosecution system in the past 500 years and for this reason we considered the official information sources to be adequate for this research paper.
Each country has been addressed in separate chapters. Chapters are divided into three or four sections: Historical Background, Current Roles, Inter-relationships and (in relation to all but Scotland) Identified Areas of Concern. It is hoped that this research will be a useful reference tool both for other jurisdictions, and for future reviews in New Zealand.