There has been some information about intervention orders on the Judicial College website for a while.There is a 12-page overview, a summary of important provisions, and some checklists. These have been around since the legislation was overhauled 3 years ago and are useful for practitioners trying to get to grips with the system. Recently the …
Tag: intervention order
Police v Beukes [2011] SASC 9: intervention order breaches are strict liability offences
In Police v Beukes the Magistrates' Court of South Australia dismissed a charge that alleged an offence under s 15(1) of the Domestic Violence Act 1994 (SA). Section 15(1) reads,(1) A person who contravenes or fails to comply with a domestic violence restraining order or a registered foreign domestic violence restraining order is guilty of …
Sentencing Advisory Council release intervention order reports
The Sentencing Advisory Council (SAC) has released the results of its review of sentencing practices for intervention order breaches.Its findings are in two reports: the Sentencing Practices Final Report and the Breaching Intervention Orders Report.The SAC identified the following issues:The lack of obvious connection in some cases between the penalties imposed and any identifiable sentencing …
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Protected witnesses protected from self-represented litigants
The respondent to a family violence intervention order is not allowed to personally cross-examine a protected person in an application for an intervention order: Family Violence Protection Act 2008 s 70.If the respondent isn't represented by a lawyer, the Act requires a magistrate to direct Legal Aid to represent the respondent for cross-examination of the …
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Good fences make good neighbours
Edit: For a recent example of an incident blown out of all of its original proportion (there have been many, but they rarely make the authorised reports) see the injunctive proceedings of Nadanic v Fotopoulos [2009] VSC 554.This familiar phrase, which is often misunderstood, was first coined by Robert Frost in his poem Mending Wall. …