Legislation Watch: Mental Health List

Last Tuesday the Magistrates' Court Amendment (Mental Health List) Bill 2009 was introduced into the Victorian Parliament. The Bill proposes to amend the Magistrates' Court Act 1989 and set up a Mental Health List within the Magistrates' Court of Victoria as a three-year pilot project. Approximately three hundred candidates will undergo rehabilitation and treatment under …

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iLaw

Last week a colleague pointed out that LexisNexis now has a platform offering unreported judgement notifiers on mobile devices such as BlackBerrys — or is that 'BlackBerries'? — and iPhones.You can see the service here.It provides for searches on mobile devices, but doesn't replicate the very-handy daily unreported judgments notifier available for free.

Are computer hard-drive contents a 'document'?

On 8 December 2009 the Supreme Court decided DPP v Chao [2009] VSC 562.Mr Chao was accused of possessing child pornography found on a computer hard-disk-drive (HDD) he left with a computer repairer. (Possession wasn't argued in this appeal, but it's settled law that the offence requires knowing possession: Police v Kennedy (1998) 71 SASR …

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Are computer hard-drive contents a ‘document’?

On 8 December 2009 the Supreme Court decided DPP v Chao [2009] VSC 562.Mr Chao was accused of possessing child pornography found on a computer hard-disk-drive (HDD) he left with a computer repairer. (Possession wasn't argued in this appeal, but it's settled law that the offence requires knowing possession: Police v Kennedy (1998) 71 SASR …

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Summary Case Conferencing

Yesterday the Chief Magistrate issued another — presumably the last for this year — Chief Magistrate's Direction, Number 6 of 2009.It concerns summary case conferences under s 54 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2009, due to come into force in three weeks.Direction No 6 is light on detail. Really it just repeats the information already …

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