Page 425 - Week 01 - Thursday, 17 February 2011

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Courts—criminal matters
(Question No 1381)

Mr Rattenbury asked the Attorney-General, upon notice, on 9 December 2010:

(1) How many criminal offences are contained in ACT law which have a maximum penalty of (a) 2 years or less, (b) 2 to 3 years, (c) 3 to 4 years and (d) 4 to 5 years imprisonment.

(2) What percentage of defendants, who are eligible, are exercising their right to elect to have their criminal matter dealt with summarily by the Magistrates Court under section 375 of the Crimes Act 1900.

(3) What percentage of defendants before the Supreme Court, who are eligible to elect to have a judge alone trial under section 68B of the Supreme Court Act 1933, are exercising that right.

Mr Corbell: The answer to the member’s question is as follows:

(1) Criminal offences are listed in a large number of ACT Statutes, all of which are available on the ACT Legislation Register. While it is difficult to provide a definite number of offences in each of the penalty classes as requested, most of the more serious criminal offences are either contained in the Crimes Act 1900 or the Criminal Code 2005. There are approximately 64 offences in both these statutes that have a maximum penalty of between 3 and 5 years imprisonment.

(2) The Magistrates Court keeps a range of statistical data against which its performance is measured but the information does not include whether an election was made to have a charge was dealt with summarily pursuant to section 375 of the Crimes Act 1900.

(3) Between 1 July 2004 and 30 June 2008 409 matters were listed for trial and elections for judge-alone trials were made in 98 cases, representing 24% of all matters. This data does not capture matters that were discontinued by the DPP or matters where pleas of guilty were indicated before the opportunity for such an election had occurred. Additionally, of the 147 matters that proceeded to trial in the same period, 83 were conducted as judge-alone trials, representing just over 56% of the trials that proceeded.

ACT Fire Brigade—performance
(Question No 1382)

Mr Smyth asked the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, upon notice, on 9 December 2010:

(1) How many calls has the ACT Fire Brigade received in each of the relevant call categories in (a) 2006-07, (b) 2007-08, (c) 2008-09, (d) 2009-10 and (e) 2010-11 to 30 November.

(2) What has been the performance of the ACT Fire Brigade in responding to calls, relative to the specified operating parameters, in each of the categories and periods referred to in part (1).


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