Barrister and lecturer Andrew Palmer was commissioned to prepare a number of summaries of the Evidence Act 2008 for the Department of Justice and Judicial College.While the one page summaries will be useful to refer to once the new rules are up and running, an overview of all the changes is provided in the Ready …
Month: August 2009
High Court bags court trying teabagging
In April I posted Teabagging begs questions of constitutional validity for courts, based on an article on Skepticlawyer that caught my eye.The High Court today delivered that decision, in Lane v Morrison [2009] HCA 29.Mr Lane was a member of the Royal Australian Navy. He was accused of teabagging a superior officer, and charged with …
Hinneberg v Brannaghan: unlawful entry to dwellings for a breath test
The case of Hinneberg v Brannaghan [2009] VSC 356 discusses the admissibility of evidence in drink-driving cases. The live issue was if the informant Senior Constable James Brannaghan had permission to enter a house, where he asked Mervyn Hinneberg to provide a preliminary breath sample. Senior Constable Brannaghan claimed an occupier of the house, Ms …
Continue reading Hinneberg v Brannaghan: unlawful entry to dwellings for a breath test
Which jurisdiction?
I reckon cases that span jurisdictions are interesting. The law is confronted with them more and more often as technology and transport cuts across borders with greater ease.Common law courts struggled with such cases. The basic premise under the common law was "all crime is local" and jurisdiction over a crime lay with the country …
More reform on the way
With the focus on the impending commencement of the Evidence Act 2008 and Criminal Procedure Act 2009, it's easy to forget about other pending reforms for the Victorian criminal justice system.A lot of plans are flagged in the Justice Statement 1 and Justice Statement 2. One big legislative change will be a new bail act, …