Tag: indefinite detention

22 Oct

New Law Grants Qld's Attorney General Power of Indefinite Detention.

The Public Interest Declarations Act amending the Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act represents a significant change to the way the law is applied in Queensland and throughout Australia. We have, until now had a clear delineation between the role of the executive and the implementation of the law by the judiciary.  The parliament has been elected to make law and our courts have interpreted and applied those laws.  This new piece of legislation departs from that process, by enabling the Attorney General to overrule the decision of the court and detain a person. Previously, applications to have prisoners detained indefinitely …

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Gatenby Criminal Law 22 October 2013
05 Sep

MANDATORY SENTENCES

  Mandatory sentencing has always been actively contested and denounced for years by bodies such as the Queensland Law Society, the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council as well as other civil libertarian associations throughout the state. Mandatory sentences do not work.   Magistrates and Judges, although bound by legislation, are usually given a wide discretion to determine the appropriate penalty for various offences. The legislation generally prescribes minimum and maximum penalties that ought be imposed. One of the cornerstones of a just and fair judicial system, is the discretion afforded to our courts in sentencing offenders. There is no such thing …

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23 Oct

SENTENCING CONSIDERATIONS

It is an important sentencing principle that parity exist in sentences imposed for like offences.  In a diverse state such a Queensland, with three levels of Courts; Magistrates, District and Supreme, there needs to be an overriding set of guidelines to ensure that sentences imposed upon offenders are consistent.  The Penalties and Sentences Act sets out the parameters within which the courts must operate. The legislation does this by setting out the purpose of imposing sentences and then establishes the principles that the Court is to apply in achieving those purposes. The purpose of imposing a sentence can be classified …

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25 Jun

TWO STRIKE LAW FOR SEX OFFENDERS

The Criminal Law (Two Strike Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill 2012 amends the Penalties And Sentences Act 1992 to insert a new major Tory sentencing regime of life imprisonment for certain repeat child sex offenders and further amends the Corrective Services Act 2006 to prescribe a minimum non-parole period of 20 years imprisonment for an offender sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment under the new sentencing regime. The new regime applies where: An adult offender is convicted of a relevant serious child sex offence (as defined in the Bill): Such offences committed after the commencement of the bill: The offender has …

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