review authority for many years and other experts have said that such
kind of a development
is long overdue. I commend
the bill to the House.
overdue. I commend the bill to the House. I call Lawrence Yule,
five minutes. It is my pleasure to speak
on the Criminal Cases Review
Commission Bill and as has already
been outlined by my colleagues last
evening, we are
opposing the bill. There is a very simple reason
for that, we just don't believe
it's necessary. So this bill establishes
a Criminal Cases Review commission
and the commission's purpose
is to review convictions and sentences
and decide whether to refer them to
the appeal court. As has previously
been said, this will replace the power
currently exercised by
the currently exercised by
the
Review Commission provides a mechanism for addressing
miscarriages of justice as an
independent body. It can
refer cases back to the appeal courts but it
does not
does not determine guilt or innocence. In our view, on this side
of the House, this will
open the flood gates to a whole lot of people
who believe they have
a miscarriage of justice and allow a
lower threshold of entry into
appeal system than currently exists. I will
remind members on the other side of
the House who think
this is such a wonderful
the House who think this is such a
the commissioners in this bill are not required to be legally
qualified making untrained and unaccountable
commissioners extremely powerful. The remaining one third of the
commissioners are not required to
have criminal legal
expertise or experience. Mr Speaker, this sets a
very dangerous precedent. Very
dangerous! It should not be
easy for somebody to actually bypass the
court system if they
want to appeal something because at the moment
they have to go
It is a high threshold for that to happen and as part
of the
she or he at the time take advice from the minister in charge, with
all the lawyers.
from the minister in charge, with
The status quo, Mr Speaker, does mean that there is an appeal
mechanism currently available. It
is not used that often but it
is available. What we've got here is
we are setting
are setting up another commission. We're advised that the
of this is 2.3 million to establish and we'll have an annual operating
budge of 3.9 million
per year. So it's not an insignificant entity.
The mere nature of
that would indicate to me,
and members of this side of the House, that
we are expecting an influx of these types
of appeal processes and, as I said
before, it will lead
to the floodgates being open. The
low threshold for people referring
things back to the court
will actually see more pressure placed on
the courts. And we already know
that the courts are overloaded. We
already know that in many
court jurisdictions people are waiting
for months, sometimes over a
year, for a hearing. So we are now allowing
somebody to go through this process,
and I remind members
of the other side, on any crime, not just a
certain threshold of crime, on
any crime, they can take it to
this crime, they can take it to this
authority. So I will remind
members, the commission will receive
applications from
applications from eligible persons or their authorised representatives,
carry out activities it considers
necessary to make the
functions known to, and understand, by
the public, in other
words to promote the body. Have the ability to
undertake initial inquiries into a
conviction or sentence. Undertake
thematic reviews into practice,
policy and procedures et cetera
and have reasonable powers to obtain
powers relevant
powers relevant to the investigation.
Now, there is a whole lot of these things that is unclear and
I will remind members of
this House, it should be by exception
that this type of appeal to the
happening here is normalising this and there are a whole lot of things
that are equally not laid
out in this bill. The bill is
silent on the possibility that a decision by
the commission could be subject to a
judicial review proceedings. In
judicial review proceedings. In
other words, at the moment,
this decision by the commission is
not appealable, on either side, even
by the court or the people that
represented
the court or the people that represented the
represented the original prosecution. There is no limit on
the types of matters that
can be reviewed, as long as it is a
crime. This opens the floodgates
and in our view it should be strongly opposed
and we are opposing it.
view it should be strongly opposed and we are opposing it. I call
Priyanca Radhakrishnan.
Priyanca Radhakrishnan. It is with great pleasure I rise to take a call
on the Criminal
Cases Review Commission Bill. I
don't know whether it is really to challenge
what the previous speaker
who just resumed his seat said