Page 3573 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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Detail Stage
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole
MR HUMPHRIES (5.04): Madam Speaker, I move:
Page 2, lines 24 to 30, clause 5, omit paragraph (a).
I am not sure why, because members spoke to the amendment before I had moved it and indicated their opposition to it; but I will be a mug and have a go anyway. Madam Speaker, the fact is that the legislation, as it presently stands, provides a sort of two-tier structure. For minor offences there is an automatic right to bail. For offences which are not minor, that is, offences which carry maximum terms of imprisonment of more than six months, there is a requirement for the person to apply for bail, and then there is a discretion on the part of the court or a police officer to grant that bail. The first level is very easy to obtain. There is no problem. The second is slightly more difficult, but it is not necessarily a terribly onerous burden to have to meet. As I indicated, a police officer in a police station can grant bail, and very often does.
Madam Speaker, the point is that at present one of the exceptions to this entitlement to automatic bail is where a person has previously failed to comply with an undertaking to appear, a bail condition or a bail undertaking in respect of any offence. In those circumstances they do not lose their right to bail; they lose only the right to automatic bail. They have to apply for it, and that may be a slightly more difficult process, but only slightly. The concern I have is that, by removing those conditions and saying that the person is entitled to bail unless they have previously breached bail on that particular offence, one makes it impossible for police to deal with a particular circumstance of somebody who has repeatedly breached bail in the past. Somebody is arrested for an alleged offence and the police have records indicating that this person has breached bail a dozen times and they have no confidence that the person is going to honour the bail conditions on the basis of their dozen previous encounters. The police have no capacity at all to deny bail, even though commonsense would tell you that they should not receive bail, or at least they should have to apply for bail and have it considered as a discretion by the police or by the court.
It seems to me that we do not impose a significant burden on the individual concerned. He does not lose his right to bail by removing the automatic entitlement; but we do ensure that, where persons are chronically unable to comply with bail conditions, they do have some chance of being restrained when it is the view of the police, based on very good evidence, that they should not receive that bail, at least not automatically. Madam Speaker, I commend the amendment to the Assembly and I hope that it will still be considered seriously.
Amendment negatived.
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