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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3854 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

A matter of concern is that it is not entirely clear what is intended by recommending that the Coroner's jurisdiction be extended into `systemic issues surrounding a domestic homicide'. The Coroner currently has an inherent jurisdiction to investigate in the course of an inquest, and report on, the broader issues surrounding a particular death. The proposal would thus appear to be intended to provide some form of additional jurisdiction to the Coroner to investigate "systemic issues" in relation to domestic homicides, beyond the jurisdiction the Coroner has to investigate issues in relation to other types of deaths. It is not clear what the boundaries, if any, of this jurisdiction are intended to be, nor why domestic homicides should be singled out for different treatment to that applicable to other deaths including, for instance, deaths in custody.

It is also relevant that, almost without exception, domestic homicides are the subject of criminal proceedings and an inquest cannot proceed before any charges have been dealt with by a Court. This raises a real question of timing and relevance. There would seem to be a potential implication, by giving the Coroner some additional, although ill defined, jurisdiction in relation to domestic homicides, for the holding of an inquest into all such deaths to be mandatory, notwithstanding that such homicides may have already be dealt with exhaustively in criminal proceedings. This raises the spectre of prolonging or exacerbating the trauma of the victim's family for questionable benefit.

Furthermore, if the purpose of the recommendations is to identify and isolate systemic issues or patterns in domestic homicides this is better achieved by appropriate research which analyses, for example, any systemic shortcomings revealed during criminal trials, comparative statistics and other matters which may be beyond the resources of a

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