by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Mar 10, 2014 | All Posts, Education
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...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Mar 7, 2014 | All Posts, Education
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...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Mar 6, 2014 | All Posts, Education
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...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Mar 3, 2014 | All Posts
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...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Mar 3, 2014 | All Posts, Education
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has released the National Curriculum on Civics and Citizenship that, pending approval from State and Territory education ministers, will be implemented over the next few years in schools throughout...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Feb 10, 2014 | All Posts
Don’t attack the lawyers Mandatory sentencing and Bills of Attainder ASADA and the Rule of Law Don’t attack the lawyers Judges and juries determine guilt, not barristers and solicitors. Legal representation of a defendant is critical to a fair trial. Without it,...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Feb 5, 2014 | All Posts, Education
This post explains the function of the new offence in the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) – Assault causing death – for students in NSW studying law reform issues. We also suggest looking at our post explaining the rule of law objections to mandatory sentencing...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Jan 31, 2014 | All Posts, Education
“What is needed is an understanding by both governments and the people that elect them that adherence to rule of law principles…is not negotiable” Kate Burns RoLIA CEO The impact of the so called ‘bikie’ laws introduced in Queensland in...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Jan 30, 2014 | All Posts
Today in NSW new mandatory minimum jail terms of up to eight years to deal with drunken violence and so-called “coward’s punches” were introduced. These changes, which affect the role of intoxication in forming intention and/or mitigation of penalty...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Jan 30, 2014 | All Posts, Education
Law Reform to deal with violent assaults Introduction NSW Govt. Toughens Laws for Intoxicated Offenders The Rule of Law and Mandatory Sentences Do Mandatory Sentences Provide Just Outcomes? Questions and Activities See also our post explaining the assault causing...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Jan 29, 2014 | All Posts
In the last days of the Parliament in 2013, Senator Nick Xenophon introduced a Private Members Bill to the Senate to make the “Harming Australians” offences in the Commonwealth Criminal Code retrospective. The Harming Australians Division of the Criminal...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Nov 14, 2013 | All Posts
“Building on the rule of law in the global engineering sector” James Polkinghorne Evident in Aristotle’s writings which stated “law should govern”, the rule of law is not a concept or discussion limited to modern times, but an ideology that has been...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Nov 4, 2013 | All Posts
It’s all the legislative rage at the moment in Queensland: attempts to target “Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs”. Three laws of concern have been passed, including the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Bill 2013; the Criminal Law (Criminal Organisations Disruption)...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Oct 16, 2013 | All Posts, Education
Guest writer Dr Ben Koh is a medical doctor with postgraduate qualification in Sports Medicine and an American College of Sports Medicine accredited exercise specialist. His first doctorate in the faculty of business, school of management, explored athletes’...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Oct 10, 2013 | All Posts
Federal Justice Minister Michael Keenan has foreshadowed tougher national unexplained wealth laws. These laws reverse the onus of proof. Where there is a “reasonable suspicion” that an individual has engaged in serious criminal activity, a court can order that...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Oct 10, 2013 | All Posts
In Lee & Anor v NSW Crime Commission [2013] HCA 39 handed down on 9 October 2013, the High Court dismissed an appeal from a NSW Court of Criminal Appeal decision which had allowed an appeal in favour of the Crime Commission. The case concerned concurrent civil...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Sep 24, 2013 | All Posts, Education
Responses by State and Territory parliaments to violent incidents involving criminal organisations has led to the passing of laws which raise rule of law concerns. Diminishing the presumption of innocence through anti-association laws and modifying the right to...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Aug 27, 2013 | All Posts
Are our courts now becoming debt-collectors of unpaid court fees? Richard Foster, the CEO of the Family Court and Federal Circuit Court has announced that family courts are trying to recover 1.4 million in unpaid fees. In the Rule of Law Institute’s (RoLIA)...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Aug 22, 2013 | All Posts
A Paper for the Economics and Business Educators’ Legal Studies Conference in 2013 on High Court Cases and the state of the freedom of political communication. Freedom took a further hit with the decision of a Federal Circuit Court judge in Banerji v Bowles when...
by RuleofLawInstitutePerson | Aug 22, 2013 | All Posts
The High Court has ruled that the Australian Crime Commission cannot require someone charged with an offence to answer questions before his or her trial on the subject matter of the charges, because that would interfere with the fundamental right to remain silent and...
