Page 1533 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 18 May 1993
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Let me identify some of the potential problems and dangers in the Bill. On-the-spot fines are administrative devices, not judicial ones. It follows that the rigorous scrutiny of a court of law and, in turn, the criminal standard of proof which is applied at the present time to all these offences might, in some circumstances, not be applied by police out on the beat who are administering this new law. That, Madam Speaker, is not for one moment a reflection on the integrity of our police force; but if you know that your actions as a matter of human behaviour are not going to be scrutinised in most cases, either by other officers at the police station when a person is brought back for a charge, or by a court of law, it is a human response, a natural response, that there should be a certain relaxation of the strict standards which apply in these circumstances to the handing out of these offences. In one sense the policeman becomes the judge and the jury. I do not need to add that a judge and a jury have behind them a very much greater body of precedent and law and of experience and expertise than does the average policeman.
Of course, Madam Speaker, it is possible under the Bill as presented for a person hit with an infringement notice to appeal to a court. On the vast majority of occasions that particular right will not be availed of. The centre of gravity, as it were, in these particular offences shifts from the six or seven magistrates and the three judges of our magistrates and supreme courts to the 500 or so policemen that the ACT currently employs, and that means that a special care is required.
For these reasons, Madam Speaker, we have made a number of protective recommendations. First of all, we recommend that a sunset clause should be imposed to provide for mandatory review by this Assembly of the operation of this law after a period of two years. We have also suggested that evidential matters be put on the infringement notice to ensure that people are well aware, fully aware, of the rights that accrue to them in these circumstances. Indeed, we have suggested that there should be a review of the notice system that is used in the ACT now for an increasing range of offences. We have suggested that a better records system should be established and maintained. I think it is true to say, Madam Speaker, that we were disturbed by the lack of information about these offences which was available to the committee, and we found the data available in this form to be somewhat rudimentary.
Madam Speaker, infringement notices are a tool of increasing importance to governments all across the country. Professor Richard Fox of Monash University, in a letter to the Age of July 1991 - that letter was drawn to our attention by the ACT Attorney - drew attention to the burgeoning of cases in Victoria where penalties are imposed through this notice system. At the time of that letter being written there were, according to Professor Fox, some nine Acts and some 500 different offences, ranging from $10 fines to $350 fines, for which an infringement notice could be issued. That clearly is a very significant shift from the imposition of penalties by courts to the imposition of penalties by other officers, principally policemen, in our community. Notices are cheap, they are easy to administer, and they are, in one sense, more acceptable by recipients of the notices because it is attractive to dispose of a matter, in many cases, through the relatively painless and probably in many cases cheaper method of paying the fine which has been imposed.
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