Page 2207 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 9 May 2012
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jurisdictions such as New South Wales and Victoria, there is little accurate data in relation to these matters. The observations made in Victoria and New South Wales about limits to data available in the justice system are important to consider, therefore, in the ACT context.
I would also point out that the ACT Law Reform Advisory Council in its report on suspended sentences found that similar inconsistencies in data apply in other jurisdictions, making it impossible to conduct any reliable comparison between the ACT and other Australian jurisdictions on bail sentencing data.
These observations all point to yet another reason why the exercise suggested by Mrs Dunne would be fundamentally flawed. What is the point of gathering data if it is not an accurate indication of the state of play or if you cannot reliably compare it to other jurisdictions? So for all of those reasons the government cannot support the second part of Mrs Dunne’s motion today.
The government does of course continue to work on and continue to implement improvements in the courts’ information management systems; but I hasten to add that any new court information system will not be a panacea for all of the criminal justice system’s data woes. The reasons for that of course are driven fundamentally by the diverse range of players engaged in the criminal justice system and their own individual requirements.
The entitlement to bail and presumptions for and against bail have been the subject of much discussion. Bail laws and decisions made by the courts are based on and draw upon the presumption of innocence principle and the notion of fairness in criminal proceedings. The presumption of innocence is central to the issue of bail and is recognised at section 22(1) of our Human Rights Act 2004 which states:
Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law.
The Bail Act, therefore, seeks to balance the often competing interests of the rights of the accused person and the need to protect the community, to prevent interference with witnesses and evidence and to ensure that a person is brought to justice. Bail can be described as the granting of temporary freedom to a person charged with a criminal offence who undertakes to return to court at a specified time. Although historically bail concerned the purchase of freedom pending trial, in a modern democratic society it is recognition of the individual’s right to liberty, subject to conditions, prior to any determination of guilt.
It is important to note that the bail laws that we have today have been the subject of significant reform over time. I will leave the cataloguing of all those important changes for another day but I will say that our bail laws do require a measured and considered response in all circumstances.
The government has already indicated that the question of ongoing reform to the Bail Act is a live one. Indeed yesterday I tabled the government’s final response to the declaration of incompatibility in relation to section 9C of the Bail Act. This response
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