Victoria Legal Aid have been reviewing their grants procedure recently. We wrote about some changes back here.From tomorrow, people charged in the Magistrates’ Court with traffic offences under the Road Safety Act 1986 will only be eligible for a grant of legal assistance if they have a psychiatric or intellectual disability or an acquired brain …
Month: September 2012
Graphic images
This graph was just released by the Sentencing Advisory Council. It shows the sentences being handed out in the Magistrates' Court, broken down by proportion.No prizes for guessing why suspended sentences are down - the mandatory imprisonment requirement for driving while suspended or disqualified took effect in May 2011, exactly the point where the brown …
Walford v DPP [2012] NSWCA 290: identification or recognition evidence
Section 114 of the Evidence Act requires that identification evidence adduced by the prosecutor be rejected unless certain preconditions are met. The offer of a parade must be rejected, or else it must have been not reasonable (in the opinion of the court deciding whether or not to admit the evidence) for one to be …
Continue reading Walford v DPP [2012] NSWCA 290: identification or recognition evidence
DPP v Blango [2012] VSC 384: no right to see the reading
In DPP v Blango [2012] VSC 384 the respondent was charged with refusing to accompany a police officer for a breath test under s 49(1)(e) of the Road Safety Act 1986. In the Magistrates' Court hearing it was common ground that the driver had refused to go unless he was shown the reading of the …
Continue reading DPP v Blango [2012] VSC 384: no right to see the reading
The same, but different
Last week the Commonwealth government announced a change of name for the Federal Magistrates Court. At a date yet to be decided, the Court will become known as the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, and FMs will now be referred to as judges.At various times through the last few years it looked like the Court …