The ACT Labor-Greens coalition is widely seen as the most permissive and truly liberal government in the country.

It is moving to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 and its criminal legislation is generally seen as quite generous, and its courts quite lenient, toward defendants. Indeed, many NSW colleagues are regularly amazed at the results ACT solicitors can get for their criminal clients.

But there are some crazy exceptions, all legislative rather than judicial.

In NSW, a drink-driver is a repeat (or, in their words, “second or subsequent”) offender if he or she has had a similar conviction inside five years. This means a stiff increase in the maximum available jail time or fine and a considerable lengthening of the minimum disqualification from driving.

But in the ACT, a repeat offender is anyone who ever – ever – had a previous drink-drive matter. So, the then teenager who had a DUI matter in 1970 is a repeat offender (facing those tougher penalties) when he returns to court as a pensioner in 2024 for going slightly over at a random test after his grandson’s 21st (and after more than a half-century of blemish-free driving).

The ACT Bail Act (subject to review by the ACT Law Reform and Sentencing Advisory Council later this year) includes Section 9D. This provides that anyone charged with a serious offence faces a presumption against bail. A serious offence is defined as one that carries a penalty of five years or more imprisonment. Breaching a Protection Order carries five years. An order can be breached by making contact with a protected person.

Many has been the case where one lovelorn teenager has texted another who was their partner until the week before. A breach. A few days later, they respond........

© Pearls and Irritations