During criminal sentencing, the mental health of the offender at the time of the offence and at the time of sentencing will be considered by the court.
In Queensland, the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld) (“the Act”) contains the sentencing principles, guidelines and options applied by the court when imposing a penalty for a criminal offence.
In Queensland, if Blue Card Services refuse to grant someone a positive notice, they can seek to overturn that decision by lodging a review of the decision in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
The Queensland Drug and Alcohol Court is an established specialist court in Brisbane that focuses on assisting defendants with severe substance dependencies or addictions.
This article addresses some of the alternative avenues for people charged with drug offences, including police drug diversion, court-ordered drug diversion and Drug and Alcohol Assessment Referral (DAAR) courses.
In response to the ‘Hear Her Voice’ report by the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce, the Queensland Government has recently passed new laws against coercive control. Queensland is one of only a few states in Australia to have such legislation in place. In this article, we define coercive control and explore the new legislation in relation to criminal offences and coercive control.
In the 2021 District Court decision of Sinclair v Lynch [2021] QDC 190, the Court helpfully outlined what constitutes a threat for the purposes of making a peace and good behaviour order pursuant to the Act.
Commonwealth offences include drug importation, terrorism, Australian Tax Office and Medicare fraud and are sentenced differently to State-based offences.