This is a guest post by legal commentator Hector Lung.
Jack Karczewski KC was admitted to practice in the NT in 1984 and provided almost 40 years of service to the Territory’s criminal justice system. He passed away in late 2023.
In early 2024 a few rather brief and underwhelming notices appeared to mark his passing. These notices were cannibalised by the NT News for its piece on Mr Karczewski, a short article, far shorter than the lengthy pieces that paper ran in the preceding few years, several aiming to mock him.
What follows is an attempt to give more substance to his legacy.
Mr Karczewski came to the Territory with a decade of legal practice under his belt in both Queensland and Papua New Guinea. In PNG, his first posting was as a Crown then Senior Crown Prosecutor while in his mid to late twenties.
By his early 30’s he was the Principal Legal Officer at the Port Moresby City Council. Clearly, he was a high achiever from the outset.
In June of 1984 Mr Karczewski commenced as a prosecutor with the Prosecution Division of the NT Department of Law, elevated to a Senior Crown in 1991. Practitioners from those days noted his style had developed—a considered, professional, essentially conservative operator, a master of detail. A lengthy spell followed with the Policy Division of the Attorney-General’s Department, Mr Karczewski having risen to Acting Director before reverting to his first gig, prosecutions.
On his return in 1997 Mr Karczewski joined the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions that had been formed in the early 90’s. Rising to Deputy Director in 1998, Mr Karczewski worked with the the Director Rex Wild QC—until Mr Wild’s retirement in 2006—to build and lead what can comfortably be considered the most effective NT DPP office thus far.
For a number of years in this period, ably bolstered by General Counsel Michael Carey, the senior figures in the NT DPP played to their considerable strengths, demonstrating the value of an effective, responsible, savvy and accountable DPP office to the community.
Mr Karczewski was made “silk”—Queen’s Counsel—in 2001. Notably in the matter of DPP Reference No 1 [2002] NTCCA 11, Mr Karczewski led the argument that highlighted the inadequacies of the Territory sexual intercourse without consent (“rape”) laws, a part precursor to overdue changes to broaden culpability more in line with community expectations.
Mr Karczewski remained in the Deputy Director role upon Mr Wild’s resignation before eventually being appointed to the Director role in 2013. Undoubtedly Mr Karczewski struggled with the Director role and one must question the sagacity of those who appointed him to the position, given his well-established strengths in appeal advocacy and provision of high level legal advice, strengths that were insufficiently broad for the Director role.
Almost immediately upon his appointment, Mr Karczewski was required to deal with the disastrous decision to remove the job of summary prosecutions in the Top End summary courts from the NT Police and put that responsibility in the hands of the northern office of the DPP. This shift was meant to be eventually replicated throughout the Territory but never was.
The decision was bad and the wound cauterised. The impact on the DPP was severe as the number of prosecutors required was significant, doubling the prosecutor numbers, without any noticeable increase in HR and other relevant resources.
Budgets were inadequate and Mr Karczewski spent his period as Director with this millstone around his neck.
Despite the strain, Mr Karczewski maintained his poise, his professionalism and grace until his resignation in 2021.
Mr Karczewski was refreshingly “old school” in that he maintained his strict adherence to the role of the Director of Public Prosecutions as a model litigant, prepared to weigh up the merits of a case dispassionately and objectively.
The prompt decision to prosecute Zachary Rolfe with murder came under Mr Karczewski’s watch and is still being analysed. It may be argued, despite the outcome of that matter, that this decision was the best for all concerned in that the killing was put under the cathartic microscope of a criminal trial and left ultimately in the hands of a jury rather than the alternative of what would have been the endless extra pain of a lack of a resolution for all parties.
Since his retirement, some commentators have had cause to reflect on the more contemporary position. In an editorial in March 2023, the NT Independent reflected on the wash up of the Colleen Gwynne case, noting the lack of an explanation as to the collapse of that case from the current Director. In part the editorial read “For Karczewski’s faults, he understood his obligation to the public in the role of Director of Public Prosecutions to explain when prosecutions are terminated”.
This observation is really a window into Mr Karczewski, a traditionalist, extremely conscious of his responsibilities, perhaps to the point it was debilitating to him as many around him let him down. Whereas media attention generated by the post-Karczewski DPP office has increasingly centred on the arguably unwise and weak pursuit of flawed cases, the media attention Mr Karczewski attracted in his period as Director was born mainly of his candour—not the opposite.
Mr Karczewski was a genuine character, he and his wife Anna a radiant presence at legal social events. They kept their abode out in the Darwin northern suburbs, well away from more traditional lawyer infested suburbs, a mark of their down to earth natures.
Mr Karczewski was a great lover of the law, a decent man who made a sustained, much more than decent contribution to the Territory.
Vale Wojeiech Jacek Karczewski KC. Spoczywaj w Pokoju.