Page 1704 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 30 April 1991
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turned into legislation on the table of this place within a day. This is a record speed which we probably cannot expect will always be repeated, but which is to be commended when it can be achieved.
MR JENSEN (9.09): Mr Speaker, as Mr Connolly has already indicated and as was stated when the Bill was introduced, on 4 November 1990 the ACT Community Law Reform Committee was issued with the reference to review the law in force in the ACT with respect to section 556 of the Crimes Act 1990 as it applies to the ACT. The Bill that we have before us tonight is a result of the committee's review of section 556.
At this juncture, Mr Speaker, I suggest that this particular committee was a much needed committee established by my colleague the Attorney-General, and it is one of the most important pluses to the community from self-government. Over the years we have seen legal law reform literally bogged down in the machinations of the Federal Parliament and Cabinet that really had little interest in the effects of law and the need for law reform in the ACT. I am also pleased to see Mr Connolly acknowledge the non-legal community representation on that committee. That was a major reform of our legal system which was long overdue. It was a major reform, might I respectfully suggest, Mr Speaker, which occurred as a result of the reforming zeal of my colleague Mr Collaery in this particular area.
Mr Speaker, section 556 of the Crimes Act provides that a person who has laid an information leading to a summary conviction is barred from instituting civil proceedings founded on the same facts, and vice versa. The term "lay an information", for those non-legal people present, relates to the initiation of criminal proceedings in a formal way by a person who seeks to bring an alleged offender before the court. The origin of this section of the Crimes Act goes back to the early nineteenth century when certain Acts of the English Imperial Parliament were adopted in the colony of New South Wales. Mr Connolly, as an eminent constitutional practitioner, I am sure was aware of that fact.
In England at the time, there was no established police force. This meant that victims, for example, of assault themselves brought either criminal or civil proceedings against the offender. The original English provisions were to prevent persons from bringing repeated criminal or civil proceedings founded on the same facts, and for which the offender had already been punished. The Crimes Act 1900 of New South Wales, when enacted, incorporated some of the earlier imperial provisions dealing with civil and criminal proceedings. Section 556 seems to have been incorporated in this way.
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