Noticeboard
| Published date | 01 March 2001 |
| Date | 01 March 2001 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/136571270100500206 |
| Subject Matter | Noticeboard |
Notices should be sent
to
Mike Redmayne, London
School
of
Economics,
Houghton Street, London
WC2
2AE.
Email: M.Redmayne@lse.ac.uk
Australia-law reform
The Queensland Law Reform Commission has published the first part of a report
on
children’s evidence.
The report recommends empowering judges to restrict
the cross-examination of witnesses under 18 years old and to prohibit cross-
examination of such witnesses by the accused in person. It recommends an
absolute prohibition of cross-examination of child witnesses by the accused in
person in trials involving sexual
or
violent offences, as well as a modification of
the test of competency. Additionally, a new offence of ‘persistent sexual abuse of
a child’ is proposed, under which the prosecution would not have to prove the
dates
or
exact circumstances of the offending behaviour. Report No. 55, Part
1,
The Receipt
of
Evtdence
by
Queensland
Courts:
The Evidence
of
Children,
available at:
www.qlrc.qld.gov.au.
The
right
to
silence
is the topic of a recent report by the New South Wales Law
Reform Commission. The Commission recommends retaining the right to silence
for pretrial questioning, but permitting prosecution comment-with leave-on a
defendant’s failure to testify. In addition, the Commission proposes requiring
the defence to disclose aspects of its case prior to trial.
A
defence would have to
be specified in broad terms. for example, ‘accident’. ‘selfdefence’, ‘consent’. Judges
would be empowered to require more detailed disclosure of the defence case at a
pretrial hearing. The disclosure provisions would be enforced by
a
number of
mechanisms, among them adverse comment. Report No. 95,
The Right
to
Silence,
available at:
www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lrc.nsf.
Canada-admissibility of expert evidence
InJJ
2000
SCC
51
the Canadian Supreme Court reconsiders the issue discussed
in
Mohan
[1994]
2
SCR
9:
the admissibility of expert evidence purporting to
demonstrate that a defendant does
or
does not have a particular psychological
profile. 1nJL.J the appellant failed
in
his
attempt to persuade the court that evidence
of a penile plethysmograph test should have been admitted to show that he did
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EVIDENCE
&
PROOF
133
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