The ACT's victims of crime commissioner is calling for a "courageous" overhaul of double jeopardy laws to make them fully retrospective and extend to violent crimes other than murder.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Respected victims advocate John Hinchey fears proposed changes to the laws don't go far enough and says the government should go back to the drawing board.
"It's not far-reaching enough, it's very conservative, it's very constrained and it'll rarely be used I believe," he said.
"I think that if the reforms are going to mean anything to victims of crime, we should be addressing reforms that I've asked to be addressed."
The principle of double jeopardy prevents someone from being prosecuted a second time for the same offence after they have been acquitted.
Under legislation introduced last week, an offender who has been acquitted of a crime punishable by life imprisonment – typically murder – can be retried if fresh and compelling evidence emerges.
Attorney-General Simon Corbell said the legislation was designed to prevent "a grave injustice" in cases where new evidence "points clearly to the person's guilt".
Retrials would also be allowed in cases involving offences punishable by jail sentences of 15 years or more where the trial process was later found to tainted or corrupted.
The ACT will be allowed to apply the law retrospectively only in cases where the trial was tainted.
But Mr Hinchey said the laws should be fully retrospective.
"Limiting the fresh and compelling evidence reforms to offences punishable by life [imprisonment] and applying it only prospectively will so limit the reform of double jeopardy as to make it meaningless," he said.
Mr Hinchey said the reforms should also be expanded to include other serious violent crimes such as manslaughter, aggravated forms of sexual assault and armed robbery, as well as commercial-scale drug trafficking and manufacturing.
Another failure of the proposed reforms was to not allow the Director of Public Prosecutions to mount acquittals based on errors of law, Mr Hinchey said.
"As it stands, the system has a far greater tolerance for unfairness to the prosecution, and subsequently, although indirectly, to victims of crime," he said.
"The law recognises the rights of a convicted person to have a jury verdict set aside and it is questionable as to why the same right is not applied when the verdict is an acquittal."
Protections would be introduced to balance the rights of the accused person, Mr Corbell said last week.
