Page 3791 - Week 14 - Thursday, 10 December 1992
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A warrant of commitment to prison is raised where a person has not complied with a court order to do something or to pay an amount of money owing in respect of a conviction for an offence. The Bill will provide for a fee, to be determined and, of course, to be disallowable, to be payable by a person where a warrant of commitment is required to be raised, issued and served on that person. In many cases, the service of a warrant of commitment on a person is the means by which the person is finally compelled to pay a sum owing and those who pay within the time allowed will not be required to pay the extra charge.
The provision in the Act which deals with the offence of contempt in the face of the court is outdated. The terms of the provision dealing with this offence date from before 1960 and the penalty currently provided is a fine of $50. The contempt provision has been redrafted and will be strengthened by the Bill. A penalty of a fine of $5,000 or six months' imprisonment or both will apply and a magistrate will be able to make an order in relation to a person charged with the offence of contempt prior to a hearing of the charge.
Where a person is committed to prison for the non-payment of an amount of money ordered to be paid by the court, the period of imprisonment cannot exceed a period currently calculated at the rate of one day for each $25 or part of $25. The rate has been unchanged since it was set in 1977. The Bill will raise this rate to that of one day for each $100 or part thereof, which will bring the basis on which the daily rate of imprisonment is calculated up to the rate currently applicable in New South Wales. This is a sensible reform, given that Territory fine defaulters generally serve their time in a New South Wales prison. The situation at the moment, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that a person from the ACT serving out time in a New South Wales prison will have to spend four times as long in prison for the same amount of fine, which is clearly inequitable.
The Magistrates Court (Amendment) Bill 1992 will also reform and extend the procedure under the Magistrates Court Act 1930 which allows a person charged with certain minor offences to plead to the charge by post and for the Magistrates Court to hear the matter without the need for the defendant to attend court. This is the pleas by post scheme. The Bill will amend the Act to include in the scheme offences created by a law in force in the Territory the penalty for which is a fine less than $1,000; the Motor Vehicles (Dimensions and Mass) Act 1900 for which the penalty is a fine less than $2,000; or an offence under the Motor Traffic Act 1936 to which a fine at or below the general offence penalty level of that Act may be imposed. This amendment will allow people charged with most minor offences in the Territory, including those created by Commonwealth legislation, the option of pleading guilty by post and being dealt with without having to attend court. That results in obvious savings.
The Bill will also amend the pleas by post scheme to provide that, without proper notice to a defendant, a penalty no greater than a fine may be imposed by the court where the defendant is not before the court or is not legally represented in court. In future, where the court intends to, for instance, cancel a defendant's driving licence as an additional penalty available under the Motor Traffic Act 1936, and the defendant or his or her legal representative is not before the court, the court will be required to adjourn and notify the defendant of a further hearing for sentence.
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