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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (15 February) . . Page.. 23 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
such inquiries to be locked up in the office of Attorney-General. Citizens of this community have the right to challenge decisions of government in a whole range of respects and it seems to me, concerning the death of a person, that it is particularly appropriate that that power to challenge a finding of a coroner or a decision of a coroner in respect of coronial proceedings ought to be a power which is similarly in the hands of the community, not in the hands of an officer of the Government.
In terms of the timing of this proposal, the Bill was generated originally by a number of requests to my office from relatives of deceased people who had sought access to a review which they could not achieve except through me. That was the genesis of this proposal. There was comment about the timing of the matter prior to the bringing down of the findings of the inquest into the death of Katie Bender. I have to say about that that it would be quite appropriate for the powers of individual citizens to be able to take up such matters to be widened, including in the case of the findings in respect of the death of Katie Bender. It was the Government's belief that that legislation should be on the table prior to those findings coming down in order to facilitate people such as, hypothetically speaking, the family of Katie Bender to take the step of challenging the findings of the inquest. Rather than seeing that as some kind of sinister development, I think it was quite appropriately seen as a means of ensuring that the family of that young girl had access to justice.
Mr Speaker, I am glad that at this stage at least the Bill will be passed and there will be opportunity for the enlargement of the rights of citizens of the ACT. I hope that the process of reviewing the law in this way through what are more or less omnibus Bills dealing with a particular portfolio area will continue as a way of dealing with a succession of relatively small matters for the most part which arise in the administration of justice, but which certainly are important to some people in the community if those matters cannot be dealt with in a timely way. I thank the house for its support.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Leave granted to dispense with detail stage.
Bill agreed to.
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (12.06): This Bill was introduced by the Attorney-General on 25 November 1999. The scrutiny of Bills committee had no adverse
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