Victoria Engel SC, the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, said her decision was “necessary”. Photo: Supplied.
Prosecutors will stop handling most new regulatory matters in court, with their director saying her decision was partly due to a strain on resources and to protect the wellbeing of staff.
However, the decision will mostly affect infringement matters from Access Canberra.
The ACT Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) will no longer accept fresh regulatory referrals, except for WorkSafe matters, from 30 June, 2025.
It will still finalise any matters that have been accepted before that date.
“The decision has been made considering the resourcing strain my office faces, which has been the subject of ongoing public comment by my predecessors and which I have been raising with government since my appointment,” ACT DPP Victoria Engel SC said on Thursday (24 April).
“To ensure we do the work we must prosecute (i.e. serious crime) properly, and to protect the wellbeing of my staff, given the risk of vicarious trauma in the work they handle, this decision has become necessary.
“We have never been properly funded for this work, and as a result, cannot continue to absorb it. It is noteworthy that this work is not usually done by a DPP, and the ACT DPP has been the outlier.”
Ms Engel alerted the ACT Government and relevant agencies to her decision two weeks ago.
Regulatory referrals are when agencies other than police bring matters before the courts, so this covers a large range of cases can that can span from parking infringements to RSPCA prosecutions.
Ms Engel said her decision would largely affect infringement matters referred to her office by Access Canberra.
“Over the last few years, the figures for prosecutions conducted have hovered around 250-400 files for these matters,” she said.
“The office has also provided advice to the various agencies from time to time.”
The ACT Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions will stop handling most new regulatory matters. Photo: Albert McKnight.
She said in February 2025, she told Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Attorney-General Tara Cheyne about her intention to consider what services her staff could no longer provide, given the budgetary constraints they operated under and the need to ensure serious crime was prosecuted to the standard the community expected.
“This is in circumstances where last financial year, my office prosecuted 5231 matters across ACT courts, including completing more than 800 family violence files and commencing more than 200 sexual assault files,” Ms Engel said.
“I am funded for approximately 50 lawyers in my office, meaning I need to consider where these resources are channelled.”
An ACT Government spokesperson said the government was considering the advice of the DPP and intended to have arrangements in place for these prosecutions to be progressed from June.
Ms Cheyne told media on Thursday that she wouldn’t describe the ACT DPP as having “a lack of resources”.
“What I would describe it as is everyone has limited resources; that’s reality,” she said.
“And the DPP is working through what they have available to them and what the priorities are from government, the priorities from the community, and making those assessments accordingly about where they should be expending their time and energy.”
Attorney-General Tara Cheyne said “everyone has limited resources; that’s reality”. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
Ms Cheyne said regulatory agencies understood the laws under which they operated and had provided the briefs of evidence to the DPP for their matters.
“I’m confident that we do have the resources within government to be able to continue with the prosecutions of regulatory matters,” she said.
“There are still prosecutorial powers available to the ACT Government and this is no change in our posture.”
Ms Cheyne said she supported Ms Engel’s decisions and she thought members of the public did want the DPP to put its efforts towards cases that mattered to the community.
“We want our most experienced prosecutors focusing on the issues that are the most important to the community and are the ones that are the most complex,” she said.
The agencies that have provided regulatory referrals include Access Canberra, the ACT Electoral Commission, ACT Human Rights Commission, ACT Parks and Conservation Service, ACT Revenue, RSPCA ACT and the Environment Protection Authority.
Ms Engel said the number of regulatory referrals fluctuated and her office had not taken on matters from every agency each year.
