Justice

[Blake]

Sorry, couldn't find the original thread.
This caught my attention in the local paper this morning.
Thought you blokes might like a sticky.

[dags19]

a slap on the wrist wtf

[Vkfour]

Don't forget, he hasn't been tried yet, but will still get off lightly.

[railscan]

He has been arrested, he has been charged. He has also been given bail, with strict conditions. Whether he abides by those conditions is a matter of conjecture. Bail is to guarantee a persons appearance before a court, not to prevent future offences.

He will no doubt be committed for trial if he is judged competent to do so and the offences warrant it. He will be tried before 12 of his peers or a single judge, not sure of the law in Victoria. If found guilty he will be sentenced as the presiding justice sees fit. That is the way the legal system works.

Is it justice? That is a very subjective matter. But before we go condeming the system remember it is the only one we have. But at least we have a legal system, many don't.

I am in no way defending him or his actions, that are prima facie stupid and irresponsible. I am however defending the legal systems of this country, for to undermine them is to undermine our very society.

R

[Blake]

Many good points railscan.
I'm very pleased, that unlike some people, you referred to it as the legal system, not the justice system.
But that's just IMO.

It was posed as a question, I was, and am not, passing judgement, simply reporting what I have observed.
Time shall tell.

Merry Christmas

[Vkfour]

Yes indeed, it is a legal system, and Railscan is indeed correct in most of his points. Bail is not however to ensure that a person appears in court, indeed quite a few of my clients over the years didn't bother to do so, much to my annoyance. Further, when that happened, their bail was further extended, again, much to my annoyance as I used to cop a serve for them not tuning up.

This is a federal offence and therefore will be heard in a Federal Court, and possibly before a magistrate only. Under our legal system, a person shall be presumed innocent until proven otherwise, and it is not usual to lock people up until they have been proven guilty. On those occasions, because of a variety of circumstances, if bail is refused, and the person later found guilty, the time spend on remand must be considered.

The federal system doesn't have a corrective services system, and consequently, anyone found guilty of an offence and sentenced to a custodial sentence will have to serve their sentence in a state facility, which the feds have to pay for, and they generally don't like doing that unless they absolutely have to.

Whilst this alleged offence had potentially very serious consequences, nothing serious actually occured other than what amounts to an inconvenience together with bewilderment and some mild heart attacks for the people concerned, and a judge / magistrate will give serious weight to this. The judge's decision should be completely unbiased, whereas radio people like us may have considerably different, and biased, (and I feel correctly so), opinions.

This is a general comment on the system and the procedures, and having made those comments, I feel that, given this is an open forum, no further comment or speculation should be made on this specific case for, without going into a lot of detail, legal reasons, or potentially so anyway.

Now, I have been TOLD by my wife that I HAVE to go away for Christmas today and to get off of this computer and get moving NOW, or suffer the consequences!

Everyone, have an extremely happy Christmas, but above all, ensure that you have an extraordinary safe Christmas.

[railscan]

I used the guarantee more in the broad sense than its formal.

R

[Blake]

This is a general comment on the system and the procedures, and having made those comments, I feel that, given this is an open forum, no further comment or speculation should be made on this specific case for, without going into a lot of detail, legal reasons, or potentially so anyway.

Ooooh, Shiny.
Sounds about as much fun as a barrel of monkeys.

Yeah, come on blokes, "no further comment or speculation should be made".
We don't want any trouble coming the forum's way.
I've unfortunately seen too many forums that have posted some such nonsense, and have had legal trouble soon to follow, and have had to be closed down.
We don't want that happening to this great forum now do we?

We will need to wait and see the outcome of the case before passing our own (admittedly biased) judgements on what we individually perceive the appropriateness of the sentence to be.

As a friend of mine says, "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one".

Merry Christmas everyone.

[railscan]

Matters can be considered sub judice and therefore to publish comment may be contempt of court. However the Commonwealth Law Reports (CLR) State, for the purposes of sub judice contempt, the law of contempt does not begin to operate until proceedings are pending in a court.

But it is probably safer to limit potentional harmful comments until after any trial. As VK4 stated, innocent until proven guilty. Unless there has been admissions, the accused does not have to prove anything, that is up to the prosecution. It is possible they have the wrong person.

R