Labor’s contempt for victims of crime

The Labor Party has shown its contempt for victims of crime by defeating legislation in Parliament that would have simplified judges’ directions to juries, thus enabling trial lengths to be shorter and reducing opportunities for offenders to be acquitted on technicalities.

Labor voted to defeat the legislation in the Legislative Assembly this afternoon as part of a deliberate strategy to delay and defeat legislation in the Parliament.

“Labor have deliberately filibustered and prolonged debate on other Bills in order to engineer an excuse to defeat this Bill,” Attorney-General Robert Clark, said.

“They have shown they are willing to put political point scoring ahead of the interests of victims of crime.

“Labor were offered numerous opportunities to adjourn other Bills in order to allow this Bill to be debated, but they repeatedly rejected those opportunities.

“The Government even moved in Parliament to adjourn debate on other Bills to allow time for remaining Bills, including the Jury Directions Bill, to be debated, as Hansard shows, but Labor rejected that opportunity.

“This is part of an ongoing strategy by Labor to put political opportunism ahead of the interests of Victorians in having Parliament debate and pass good legislation that will make life better for Victorian families.”

The Jury Directions Bill proposed to make improvements to law governing the lengthy and complex directions that judges are often required to give to jurors in criminal cases.

“For years jury directions had become so complex that judges found it difficult to comply with the law and jurors struggled to understand the lengthy directions to which they were forced to listen,” Mr Clark said.

“This frequently led to appeals and retrials, often on technical grounds causing delays and wasted costs as well as further stress for victims of crime, their families and others involved.”

The provisions in the Bill would have simplified and clarified important jury directions on:
• what must be proved beyond reasonable doubt;
• other misconduct evidence;
• unreliable evidence;
• identification evidence;
• delay and forensic disadvantage;
• delay and credibility, and
• failure to give evidence or call witnesses.

The Bill had been developed in consultation with a specialist Jury Directions Advisory Group that included high-level representatives from the Court of Appeal, County Court, Victorian Bar, the Office of Public Prosecutions, Judicial College of Victoria, Victoria Legal Aid and academics specialising in jury research.