 |
Legislative
Council |
|
 |
||
| Ian Gilfillan Australian Democrats Member of the Legislative Council |
Parliament Index |
|
|
Legislative
Council |
|
|
||
| Ian Gilfillan Australian Democrats Member of the Legislative Council |
Parliament Index |
|
Since last year the commonwealth has passed its own related legislation—the Jurisdiction of Courts Legislation Amendment Act, the so-called JOCLA Act. My colleague Australian Democrats Senator Brian Greig on 13 April spoke to that bill, as it then was, and pointed out:
The technical issues involved are highly complex, cross a number of areas of public policy and, most importantly, entail intergovernmental negotiations, which can be notoriously difficult.
I note that, in debate on the JOCLA bill in the Senate, one issue that arose was the retrospective application of sections which restrict a defendant's ability to challenge pretrial decisions taken by commonwealth officials in the criminal justice process. The Attorney, in his second reading explanation to this bill, notes that similar amendments are proposed to the Corporations (South Australia) Act 1990. The Australian Democrats are generally unsupportive of changes to the law, especially the criminal law, which apply retrospectively. As Senator Greig says:
. . . our starting position for these matters is to ensure that people who are apprised of the law should be subject to the law as the law stands.
I therefore ask the Attorney to clarify whether there is a retrospective element to any of these proposed amendments as they affect any criminal offences under the Corporations (South Australia) Act 1990. We have sent a copy of this bill to the Law Society. We are awaiting the society's considered opinion on the technical aspect of the bill. However, if any issues are raised by the Law Society, I believe that we should be able to address them in committee. With these comments, I indicate our support for the second reading.
