Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1893 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

required to appear before the court. There is no logic for excluding a lawyers clerk from this section of the bill as that person may have had equal responsibility with the lawyer in the preparation of a case.

This is quite a simple amendment. It simply allows a person who is accompanying one of the described classes to also fall within the description.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Attorney-General) (5.11): Instructing solicitors or junior counsel are lawyers. Mr Stanhope probably has not anticipated the flip side of what he is saying. Maybe you could say that a clerk could be required to attend a court. A clerk, even if they were not a lawyer, certainly would not be refused entry to the court. But that does not mean they are a person required to attend court. Obviously, the person's lawyer is and if there were several other lawyers, they would be. Whether a clerk should be included in that is, I suppose, probably neither here nor there. In practical terms it would not matter.

There are some problems, though, because the effect of Labor's amendment would water down the power in clause 14 to remove people from court for contravening a request to undergo a search or leave a bag with an officer because it extends the category of persons with a limited exemption in clause 14. Currently, persons whose attendance is required at court are parties to the court proceedings and the legal representatives of such people.

This Labor amendment would extend the limited exemption to anyone accompanying one of those persons. I think that could very substantially compromise court security. For example, if a Rebels motorcycle gang member was a defendant in a case-that person would be a party before the proceedings in accordance with subclause (3) (b), and that is fair enough-he could come to court accompanied by other gang members who would be able to benefit from the limited exemption in clause 14. I think that would be an inappropriate outcome. So I think there would be real dangers if the Assembly adopted Labor's amendment.

The wording of the clause is fine and it certainly covers the relevant people. There could be real problems, though, if the Labor amendment, as it stands, were agreed to. Indeed, there could be some potentially dangerous situations because quite clearly the subclause as amended would include anyone accompanying a party to the proceedings-in other words, the defendant. The example that I gave of motorcycle gang members would very clearly be a case in point and I am sure that members would not want to see something like that happen or that type of person being able to claim that they are a person required to attend court.

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (5.14): I must say that, in giving an example, I was thinking or attempting to think quickly on my feet. I am concerned about the circumstances that could arise. Perhaps I should have thought before about the examples that I could give. There was much hoopla about the re-announcement of the appointment of a witness assistant. I had thought for a couple of years that we had a witness assistant. I was a bit surprised to see we had just signed the agreement.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .