§ Mr. Percivalasked the Attorney-General in respect of how many different criminal offences the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions must be obtained before a prosecution is commenced; how many of these were added in each of the years 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1967; how many applications were made to the Director of Public Prosecutions for consent to commence proceedings where such consent is required in each of the years 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1967; and on how many occasions such consent was refused in each of these years.
§ The Attorney-GeneralProsecutions for criminal offences under 13 different statutes require exclusively the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Only one of these provisions, section 9(7) of the Building Control Act, 1966, was added during the years 1964 to 1967. There are an additional 19 statutes under which the consent of the Director is an alternative to the consent of some other named person, usually the appropriate Minister.
To obtain the figures of the number of applications made to the Director during the years 1964 to 1967, and of the number of refusals of consent during that period, would involve a considerable amount of work and expense which would not in my view be justified.