Commentary on Clauses Section 36: Functions: supplemental
224.Subsection (1) provides that the Director is required to discharge his functions under the superintendence of the Attorney. The Attorney has a similar power of superintendence in relation to the functions of both the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Director of the Serious Fraud Office. Accordingly the Director RCPO is accountable to the Attorney for the exercise of his functions and, in turn, the Attorney will answer to Parliament for the exercise of these functions by the Director. The provision of information to the Attorney about individual cases or persons, in the context of statutory independence, is a disclosure for the purposes of a function of the Prosecutions Office, within the provisions of section 40(2)(a).
225.Subsection (2) requires the Director and prosecutors to have regard to the Code of Crown Prosecutors at all key stages prior to and during criminal proceedings.
226.Subsection (3) provides the Director with a power to discontinue proceedings of which he has conduct. An equivalent power has been exercised by the DPP in relation to proceedings of which he has conduct before the magistrates` courts since the inception of the Crown Prosecution Service and latterly in relation also to those of his proceedings which are before the Crown Court.
227.Subsection (4) confirms that the Director may be provided in an enactment with the power to institute proceedings in England and Wales only. The present arrangements will continue in respect of prosecutions, following investigations by officers of Revenue and Customs, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland.