“Finality is a good thing, but justice is a better” per Lord Atkin in Ras Behari Lal v King-Emperor (1933) Privy Council decision. The High Court in its decision dated 12 February 2014, Smith v the State of Western Australia 2014 HCA3 found that a jury verdict of...
The Rule of Law Institute of Australia (RoLIA) has produced an education resource for secondary students in Queensland to help them understand the laws passed to deal with organised crime in Queensland. The booklet explains aspects of the following issues: The VLAD...
In a recent speech at the Great Synagogue in Sydney, Chief Justice James Allsop of the Federal Court spoke candidly about the need to value “civility, reason, fairness and justice. … Civility and manners in social intercourse are not bourgeois affectations; they are...
The Crimes Amendment (Intoxication) Bill 2014 was introduced this week into the NSW Parliament. It increases the penalty by two years for a number of assault offences if they were committed by an adult who was intoxicated at the time. They also set mandatory minimum...
In the recent High Court decision Barbaro v The Queen; Zirilli v The Queen [2014] HCA 2 the High Court considered another aspect of the sentencing process: does the prosecution have any role in informing the judge about what sentence should be imposed? A practice has...
