ADMJ 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Suspended Sentence, Summary Offence
Document Summary
Most applicants for criminal matters are male. An australian study of nsw local court found that about 50% of defendant were not represented. Individual: cultural and language barriers, lack of understanding of law and legal practices, geographical location. Agency: resourcing, escalation in costs and numbers of those needing assistance, eligibility requirements. Ultimately: inequality between private and public defence. Judicial practice where guilt or innocence determined by a dangerous test. Proof of innocence is survival or healing. Seriousness of crime determined by level of injury to church or monarch. No equality before the law: benefits of clergy, bribes. Shift away from rule by monarch to rule by the people. Liberalism: rights of individual above all else, impartiality, neutrality, equality, rationality, justice, liberty, underpinned the development of modern criminal court systems due process. Feudal model: rule of monarch, power in hands of monarch, nobility, church, inequality before law, concerned with the maintenance of power and church, presumed guilty, private, arbitrary.
