Together with a few hundred others I struggled through the oppressive heat on Tuesday evening to attend Parkville for the eighth annual Chancellor's Human Rights Lecture.As it turns out, I shouldn't have bothered. Not that Stephen Charles QC didn't read a thought-provoking paper; he did, although the time constraints and breadth of what he wanted …
Tag: commentary
Section 138: Discretion to exclude
New arrivals to the arena of criminal law are sometimes surprised to learn that evidence which is improperly or unlawfully obtained by investigators is not — for that reason alone — inadmissible.Historically, the default position has been that relevant evidence is admissible unless made inadmissible by statute or an exclusionary rule of evidence. The touchstone …
Free Evidence Act resources
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 …
Former Chief Justice dies
Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, John Harber Phillips, died today.I only ever had the opportunity to meet him twice. He seemed a thoroughly decent gentleman, and was certainly a well-respected jurist throughout Victoria and Australia.The Victorian Bar has a short obituary online already. No doubt there will be much more written …
New Evidence Act text released
I posted about resources available for the new Evidence Act a while back, and as the commencement date draws closer (even if it's still not officially announced yet), I'm trying to absorb as much information about the changes as I can.Thomson just released the 3rd edition of Uniform Evidence Law: Commentary & Materials by Miiko …