The upper echelons of Canberra's criminal bar are on a collision course with Chief Justice Lucy McCallum over the conduct of sexual-assault trials in the ACT.

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Senior barristers with long pedigrees in both defence and prosecution are agitating for the territory's Bar Association to publicly challenge recent comments of the Chief Justice, suggesting the direction she has outlined could lead to more people being wrongly convicted and imprisoned.

The Bar Association has been told by a senior member that several of the Chief Justice's reported comments are "quite concerning in terms of foundational precepts of the criminal-justice system in this country, in particular the presumption of innocence, the right to silence and the right to test and call evidence and the other hallmarks of a fair trial".

Of McCallum's comment about "exactly what we're up against with some juries" in sexual-assault trials, one says: "Who precisely the 'we' is that are up against some barrier is not entirely clear but is unfortunately expressed in a way (at least at one level) indicative of a view that in some cases juries in sexual-assault cases are inappropriately returning Not Guilty verdicts."

The Chief Justice's quote - "There's an intractable problem in that our overriding task and function is to ensure an accused person has a fair trial" - caused particular concern, as did her view that the presumption of innocence afforded to an accused person meant that sex-assault complainant's heard" "We are entitled to think you might be........

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