Andrew McIntosh, the Minister responsible for establishing an anti-corruption commission, recently announced the appointment of Brendan Murphy QC as Victoria's first Public Interest Monitor.The PIM is appointed under the Public Interest Monitor Act 2011. His role is to appear at the Supreme Court and Administrative Appeals Tribunal when investigative agencies apply for confidential or secret …
Tag: police
Lane, beset and Max: public protesting apparently permitted
The Magistrates' Court announced on twitter this week that the DPP decided to not appeal the 23 July 2012 decision dismissing trespass charges against protestors at Max Brenner's chocolate bar in Melbourne from 1 July 2011. (The decision is available on the Magistrates' Court website here.)So, what's the effect of all this?Well, the first thing …
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Chief Magistrate calls for review of police prosecutors
The Age reported two days ago that Chief Magistrate Ian Gray suggested reviewing police acting as prosecutors in the Magistrates' Court (and presumably also the Children's Court). Assuming he was quoted accurately, what the Chief Magistrate said was genuine independence from investigating police was a problem, and also that police aren't trained or resource adequately …
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Swearing at the police can still be a crime
For the last week or so the UK media has made a lot of noise about a recent judgment where the Queen's Bench upheld an appeal by Denzel Harvey against his conviction for using threatening, abusive or insulting words within the hearing of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress, contrary to …
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Running from the police ain’t a crime when you ain’t arrested
Only recently my colleague discussed the case of a man who fled from police who wanted to speak with him about dinner.He was charged with resisting the police in their execution of their duty — making life difficult by not hanging around to be investigated. The Magistrates' Court dismissed the charge in Hemingway v Hamilton …
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