Page 1605 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2011
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I will repeat that:
This proposed reduction in the availability of trial by jury of a criminal charge would bring about a substantial change to the constitutional arrangements of the Territory concerning the administration of justice.
Once upon a time the threshold was one year for an indictable offence, then it became two. But this ACT Labor government, which claims that it upholds the human rights principle, now proposes to increase the threshold for trials on indictment to five years. This is a serious derogation of the rights of an accused to a trial by jury and this government has given little, if any, credence to this in its justification for this change in the jurisdiction of the Magistrates Court. It has merely said that it will help to reduce the backlog in the Supreme Court.
I am troubled by the government’s approach and I am troubled by the government’s disregard for the impact it will have on rights that extend back in our law and in the history of our law for more than 700 years.
I note from the Attorney-General’s response to the scrutiny committee report that he will be tabling a supplementary explanatory statement to address the shortcomings in the initial explanatory statement which the committee identified and commented upon. I look forward to that, and I note again that, with respect to the Department of Justice and Community Safety, the Attorney-General has become a serial offender of the requirements of the scrutiny committee for more fulsome discussion of the derogation of human rights in the explanatory statement.
I also note that there is work afoot in the scrutiny committee, courtesy of the adviser, to assist officials in how to write a human rights compliant explanatory statement. I hope that we will see an improvement and that the minister will cease to be a serial offender.
The legal fraternity wanted provisions, as I said before, enabling rehearing rights for all summary matters in the Supreme Court. Civil Liberties Australia also expressed strong criticism of the government’s bill and supported the approach which will be put forward in amendments that I will move in the detail stage, which will be in May.
The government rejected that proposal. The Attorney-General says that if we went down that path the process that was originally asked for by the Law Society, Civil Liberties and the Bar Association could not happen here in the ACT because it would require the involvement of an intermediate court. He thought that it would not assist with his aim of reducing the load of the Supreme Court.
As I said, the amendments I will propose in the detail stage will not completely restore the right of an accused to a trial by jury. However, it will go some way to ameliorating the derogation of that right as proposed in the government’s bill, and my amendments will be subject to review.
In subjecting them to review, it is my hope that by the time these amendments have been in operation for two years and have been reviewed, we will have addressed the
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