From time to time, I wonder how much a prosecution costs.
Because there is a cost to it. Time, effort, skill, people, resources, and systems are drawn upon. There is an opportunity cost for all of that. All that can be spent somewhere more fruitful.
Whenever I see the trial of a powerful politician, I wonder how much prosecuting them cost. Immense effort, coordination, time, expertise, planning, and preparation go into prosecuting a case against beasts like that. But be it a simple or a political circus case, each prosecution is a concerted coordinated collective effort involving many people, agencies and administrations.
Let’s start by considering a simple theft case. X steals Y’s wallet at a mamak.
Who is going to be involved in this case? What do they have to do?
Let’s start with the police.
First, there are the counter police officers who receive the complaints from the complainant, usually the victim.
Second, there are the investigating officers. They will seek further details beyond those provided in the police report. They will record the complainants’ statements.
Third, there are the arresting officers who are tasked with arresting the suspects.
Fourth, the suspects are likely to be remanded for a few days. They will be put in lockup. Premises, facilities, food and services are required to lock people up.
Fifth, there are the officers on duty to guard and administrate those premises.
Sixth, the stolen property are evidence. Those are stored in the police store room. It is often manned by an old near-retired policeman of low rank. Store-room cop and storage facilities are a minimum.
These potential officers would be involved in a simple theft case. The officers called as witnesses would be the counter officer who received the report, the investigating officer, the arresting officer, the storage officer and maybe a photography officer. So we are looking at, at least, 5 police witnesses.
Next are the public witnesses.
Usually, the complainant and those who happened to be nearby or related to the facts of the offence will have to give evidence at trial. The amount of public witnesses depends on the complexity of the case. A simple theft should have between two to five people. Let’s say this case requires 3 witnesses.
The police have to manage coordinate and notify the police and public witnesses to attend court.
Ensuring the attendance of a public witness takes effort. They have to be located. They have to be questioned and investigated. Their statements have to be taken. If they are required for trial, subpoenas have to be applied for and after issued, served. Witness statements have to be prepared. Time, effort and expertise go into all these efforts.
There has to be a system in place. Systems cost time, money and effort to establish, run and maintain.
It is only with and after all that is put in place dcan a prosecution get a case off the ground and bring it to court for trial.
In court there are the judges, the prosecution officers and the defence counsels. But there are also the court interpreters, the judge’s secretary, the registrars assisting the judge and the court officer.
Now before going into court, both the judge, the defence counsel and the prosecution have to be ready. They have to prepare. Preparation consumes time, effort, expertise, abilities, and thinking have value, takes effort and resources and therefore costs money.
Once the trial begins, the court hears the criminal case. It cannot listen to other criminal cases. Those have to wait their turn. The lawyers and prosecutors involved in the case must attend the trial. They cannot attend to other cases when attending to this one.
At the trial, the prosecutors and lawyers will examine witnesses, adduce and challenge evidence, and advance arguments. After the court hears the evidence and arguments it has to decide whether the accused person is guilty or not guilty.
Whatever the decision, it would be money well spent because it achieved its purpose of determining the accused person’s guilt.
So for this simple example, we are looking at between 7 and 8 witnesses, a lawyer, a prosecutor and a judge. How much does all that cost – the administration, the expertise required, the investigative efforts, the prosecutorial efforts, the court’s and lawyer’s time, etc.?
We don’t know because the prosecution does not have a cost estimate of how much they spend for each case they prosecute. That is dangerous because without a cost assessment they cannot estimate their actual cost and opportunity cost. We don’t know how efficient or wasteful the prosecution was.
Now let’s take Zahid Hamidi’s case. In that case, there were 99 prosecution witnesses called and examined. Thousands of pages of submission and legal authorities filed. The court ruled that the prosecution had proven a prima facie case. That means the prosecution established a case against Zahid Hamidi. They had proven the truth of those charges against him. That is why his defence was called. He called 15 witnesses for his defence who were also examined.
After all that, the prosecution withdrew the prosecution against Zahid Hamidi after a case was made out because they claimed the need to do further investigations. All the effort and costs spent on pre-trial, trial and trial of the defence is now wasted. All the prosecutors’ efforts were wasted. Judge’s too. Pissed away. Our tax money funds all that. That means, withdrawing the charges sent our tax money down the toilet too.
The Attorney General’s Chambers as a government agency ought to make a cost assessment for all its cases to track how efficiently they use precious and limited government resources. With a cost assessment, the public as well as the AGC’s can have a better sense of value and worth to the AGC’s prosecutions and work and its ultimate contribution to the administration of justice. We will know how much a carelessly evaluated or negligently prosecuted prosecution costs.
More importantly, we can assess how the government is wasting our tax money and hold them to account.
1 thought on “Putting a Price on a Prosecution”
How can we assess the true cost and efficiency of prosecuting cases, from simple theft to high-profile political trials, and hold the government accountable for its resource utilization?