ABSTRACT
For decades, the common law has imposed a duty of fairness on the prosecution in England and Wales and Canada. However, detailed judicial guidance on the issuesofdisclosurebytheprosecutionof itscaseandunusedmaterialwas limited. Often, it cited the rule that the pre-trial release of information by the prosecution to the defence was primarily a matter of discretion for the prosecution, except where mandated by one of the few statutory provisions.1 In the 1990s, advance disclosure of the evidence upon which the prosecution intended to rely2 became better organised and was given more consistently in England and Wales as a result of Joint Performance Agreements between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).3 This was not only a matter of assisting the accused to exercise his right of making a full answer and defence. For the administrators, it was vital to the efficient functioning of the courts and the caseflow management system.4 This result, combined with improvement in the timing of the dispatch of the committal papers to the defence, improved the position of the defence.5
