The possibility of uniform criminal laws for Australia came a step closer today with the release by the standing committee of Attorneys General of the first chapter of a model criminal code dealing with principles of criminal responsibility.
The chairman of the standing committee, Joe Berinson, said the document, released today as a discussion draft, was prepared by a committee of criminal law experts from all Australian jurisdictions which was established in 1990.
Efforts to seek greater uniformity were initiated in June 1990 at the suggestion of the Northern Territory Attorney General. Calls for greater consistency were repeated at the third International Criminal Law Congress in Hobart in September 1990.
The standing committee also supported a major interjurisdictional conference in Brisbane in April 1991. This was chaired by the Chief Justice of Western Australia and attended by judges, prosecuting and defence lawyers, academics, and law reformers.
The present diversity in criminal law is a direct result of Federation. The Australian Constitution left the general criminal law power with the States, resulting in differences from State to State and, later, in differences between the States and Territories.
The differences have been increased both by the expansion of Federal criminal law and by the fact that some jurisdictions enacted criminal codes while others relied on a combination of statute law and common law. Later developments, particularly in the common law, widened these differences further.
In some cases there is no consistency on even such basic questions as to when persons are to be held criminally responsible for their actions.
Another example of continuing differences is the minimum age of criminal responsibility. In Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 10, but it is seven in Tasmania and at common law, and eight in the ACT.
The discussion draft deals with principles of criminal responsibility of both individuals and corporations.
