Any further delays in the David Bain retrial could cause the public to lose confidence in the system which will try him, says Otago University law dean Professor Mark Heneghan.
Justice Graham Panckhurst announced yesterday the retrial start had been further adjourned from August this year to February
16 next year. It was originally due to get under way on May 5.
Reasons given for the further delay were to ensure a fair trial and to allow scientific evidence to be finalised and made available for the defence's evaluation.
Bain is charged with murdering five members of his family in their Dunedin home in 1994.
He served 12 years in jail for the murders before the Privy Council quashed his convictions last year and the New Zealand Solicitor-General ordered a retrial.
The delays so far were "not totally outside the ballpark" in terms of High Court trials, but if the retrial was delayed again in February, questions would have to be asked, Prof Heneghan said.
"Then you would say, `Well, is this just a tactic going on here, are people just playing the system out and hoping it goes away?" he told the Otago Daily Times.
Prof Heneghan conceded there may be a lot of information for both sides to trawl through but said there needed to be a balance between that and justice being seen to be done, "because delay denies justice at a certain point".
There would come a time when people lost confidence in the system, he warned.
"I think people want this matter cleared up. The trial has got to be fair and all the rest of it, but you can't keep going on like this forever."
Extending the start date of the retrial would extend the costs for both teams, Prof Heneghan said.
The whole case has previously been estimated to cost more than $15 million.
- NZPA
