Page 6053 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Consequently, the court found that the prosecution must elect which fault element to proceed with.
This interpretation is contrary to the intention of this Assembly. The intention behind the inclusion of both the fault elements was to allow for a judge or jury to decide which alternative element was satisfied based on the facts before them. So, if the fault element of knowledge is not proved, the decision maker could consider if recklessness had been proved.
To address this concern it is proposed that section 60 be amended to remove the fault element of knowledge from subsections (1) and (2) of the Criminal Code. A new subsection (3) will be included to state that either knowledge or recklessness will satisfy the element of recklessness. Therefore, recklessness is the fault element that is to be established, and recklessness can be established by proving knowledge or recklessness.
The fourth proposed amendment is to the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005. The amendment will allow for a victim impact statement to be given to a court once an offender has pleaded guilty to an offence or once the court has found the offence proved or once the offender has been found guilty or convicted of the offence and before the offender is sentenced.
This amendment will specifically allow the court to consider a victim impact statement in order to determine if a conviction should be recorded against the offender.
The fifth and sixth proposed amendments are to the Criminal Code 2002. The fifth amendment seeks to insert an alternative verdict provision for the indictable drug trafficking offence at section 603 of the code.
This amendment will allow the Supreme Court to consider the alternative summary offences of possession in the Drugs of Dependence Act 1989 and the Medicines, Poisons and Therapeutic Goods Act 2008 if a defendant has been found not guilty of the section 603 offence.
An alternative verdict allows an accused person to be convicted of a lesser offence than the offence charged, where the offence that is charged includes the less serious offence. As stated in the case of the Queen and Springfield, the test is whether the lesser offence is an essential ingredient of the major one.
The inclusion of the alternative verdict provision for the drug trafficking offence at section 603 will allow the Supreme Court to convict an offender of a lesser offence at the time of trial. This outcome is advantageous as all of the charges can be determined at once, providing for an expedient outcome for the defendant and the territory’s justice system.
The sixth amendment will amend the definition of stolen property as it applies to the section 324 unlawful possession of stolen property offence in the code.
The section 324 unlawful possession offence creates an offence where a person has property or where a person gives possession of property to another person not entitled
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video