The folks responsible for the government's end of the Criminal Procedure Act have released a Best Practice Guide to the new procedures:Summary case conferencing is now available at all metropolitan Magistrates’ Courts (except Melbourne where it will be introduced on 15 March) as well as Ballarat and Geelong. It is one of the new features …
Month: February 2010
Is your adjournment request "good"?
The folks responsible for the government's end of the Criminal Procedure Act have released a Best Practice Guide to the new procedures:Summary case conferencing is now available at all metropolitan Magistrates’ Courts (except Melbourne where it will be introduced on 15 March) as well as Ballarat and Geelong. It is one of the new features …
JPs to stay
I posted last year about the potential abolition of Justices of the Peace.The decision has been made to retain them, according to a press release from the Attorney-General last week. During the consultative round the submissions received were overwhelmingly opposed to scrapping the role (perhaps not surprising, given that 97% of submissions were from JPs …
A fool for a client …
Whatever the general rule of puttage might be (see The recent history of Browne v Dunn, above), a specific prohibition on the accused giving (or adducing) evidence now exists at s 358 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2009. Division 4 of Part 8.2 of the Act prohibits an unrepresented accused from personally cross-examining a protected …
Victim Impact Statements
Retiring Justice Philip Cummins' comments about sentencing during his farewell sitting on Tuesday have caused some attention, particularly his appraisal that courts had "fallen short on sentence" in cases involving sex offences, violence, and especially domestic violence.In October last year the Victims Support Agency released a review on the use and effectiveness of Victim Impact …