Argument Against Double Jeopardy In Australia

Australian society has ultimately rejected the idea of the practice of capital punishment making a return into the Australian law books. However, events such as the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the Bali bombings have ensured that the spotlight once again shines on the controversial subject. I am in favour of the practice returning to Australia for heinous crimes such as murder, child molestation, serial rapists, and people who commit acts of animal cruelty. This is because:

Have the amendments provided in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, altering the legal principle of double jeopardy in England and Wales, greatly improved our system of justice? Discuss.

The Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) act 1999 (NSW) outlines the sentencing process in which judges use their discretion to consider factors including the purposes of punishment, aggravating and mitigating factors and Victim impact statements. This can be seen in R v Loveridge where the original sentence

The New South Wales (NSW) criminal justice system has been separated into “two tiers of justice”. The two tiers of justice involve the separation of lower and higher courts, where the lower courts are comprised of Local courts and the higher courts are comprised of District and Supreme courts. The local courts role lies mainly in exercising summary jurisdiction whereas more serious indictable offences are dealt with in higher courts. However, there is more than just a jurisdictional divide and there are other aspects that significantly distinguish the lower courts from the higher courts.

Mandatory sentencing is a set penalty approved by parliament for committing a criminal offence. This sentence can involve any type of consequence, it normally refers to prison sentencing. All Australian states and territories have mandatory sentences, most of them introduced life imprisonment for murder after the death penalty’s abolition but, over time, most jurisdictions adjusted the minimum penalty. (Roche, 1999)

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court denied a new trial as the ruling was final and be considered double jeopardy.

Back in England the king tried cases as many times as he wanted to so he can get the desired verdict. The founding fathers saw this to be unfair towards the citizen and especially with a biased grand jury.

or limb.” Put into simpler words as a crime cannot be tried twice in the court of law. This law has

On any given day in Canada, there are more blameless individuals in jail than liable ones. By "blameless individuals" I mean the individuals who have been blamed for a wrongdoing and are being hung on remand, anticipating a safeguard hearing or a trial. “dozens of innocent people might be languishing behind bars. Over the ensuing 30 years, more than 20 convicted murderers have been freed on the basis of serious doubts about the reliability of evidence and trial fairness in their cases.” The revealing of wrongly convicted wrongdoers has been apparently the overwhelming lawful improvement in Canada over the past half-century. In recent years, the issue of wrongful conviction has turned into an acknowledged reality in most common law jurisdiction; Prominent cases tend not just to attract our consideration regarding the deleterious impacts of a wrongful conviction on an individual but also to illustrate how parts of the criminal justice process have fizzled. An across the nation system of attorneys, columnists and legitimate associations have fought resolutely in the courts to get the freedom of offenders who had, in some cases, spent decades incarcerated. Clearly, wrongful conviction is the aspect of being in fact innocent but unfairly held accountable by a jury or other court of law for an act you did not do. Also a criminal code is a statute which implies or endeavors to set out all denied or criminal offenses, and their different disciplines. In this paper, I discuss

Australian law is greatly influenced by English Law, being the foundation to the Australian Law System that shaped our country to the democratic and unbiased country known today. Australia has adapted the adversary law derived from English Law, it is when two contrasting sides in a case present their evidence and argument in court, this occurs with an unbiased third party overviewing the cases (Hamper et al., 2009). The Lin Family Case was over viewed by two third parties; the Jury and Justice Elizabeth Fullerton, the opposing sides is Mr Xie and the witness is Detective Constable Anthony Ryan who investigated the crime scene (Visitation, 2015). The adversary system ensures a fair verdict of the case put forward thus, a particular side at no time has a unfair upper-hand.

In Australia, the criminal justice system is largely effective in achieving justice for individuals however due to the difficulty in simultaneously balancing the rights of the victim and accused, law reform may be necessary to further the achievement of justice. The criminal justice system is a set of laws and rules that are established by the government to assist in protecting the members of the community and their property. The criminal justice system is also set in today’s society to prevent crime and to impose penalties on those who violate the law. Legal measures within the criminal justice system include; court mechanisms, legislative reform and police. The efficacy of legal measure in achieving justice for individuals is evident in relation to; bail and remand, juries, double jeopardy, police powers in arrest and mandatory sentences.

A Trial Chamber enjoys broad discretion in determining a sentence. The sentence must be determined by weighing and balancing all the relevant factors. The weight given to an individual factor and the balancing of all relevant factors in arriving at the sentence is at the core of a Trial Chamber’s exercise of discretion. However, a Trial Chamber’s failure to consider one of the mandatory factors listed in rule 145 (1) (b) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence can amount to a legal error in the context of challenging the Trial Chamber’s discretionary decision on sentencing.

Many believe that in regards to the justice system in Australia, the punishment for committing various crimes does not fit the offence. There are various crimes where the punishment is agreed to be much less severe than it should be, and other crimes where the penalty afflicted should be lowered. There are numerous cases in Australia today that prove that the punishment does not fit the crime in Australia. The crimes of the ‘one punch law’, domestic abuse cases, and paedophilia are all examples of acts that often do not receive the punishments they deserve. These cases all have penalties that are far too low to fit the crimes committed.

The criminal justice system in Australia follows the classical model of crime control in which criminal acts must follow with subsequent punishment. Our policies around crime control are closely linked to the political agenda of the ruling government. In Australia the liberal government have been in power for the majority of the last 20 years, and have adopted a “tougher on crime” stance in their policy-making procedures. Research has however shown that this method does not provide justice to many of the disadvantaged groups in our community, and only further reproduces the social inequalities that these individuals face.

To understand the shortcoming of the Victorian law, it is essential to first look at the prosecution process. The Victoria Police has the responsibility of formulating the initial charges in criminal cases. The police manual states that for charges to be initiated there must be sufficient evidence and the prosecution must be justified(Brereton and Willis, 1990). A prima facie standard is applied to such cases of immorality such as rape or other offenses and it basically tries to find if there is sufficient evidence which a reasonable and properly instructed jury would be satisfied with beyond all reasonable doubt(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1983). However, the manual does not give any indication of the extent of this test as is applied in standard practice by the individual police officers. There are also no formal mechanisms for the review of the decisions