Category: Criminal Law
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law

In Defence Of The Defence

This week the Queensland opposition launched a robust attack on a centuries-old criminal law defence. The 'mistake of fact’ defence was encoded into Queensland law in 1899 when our Criminal Code was first enacted, adopting a common-law notion dating back at least as far as pre-Norman England, that criminal liability requires some sort of actual subjective culpability, whether based on moral guilt or negligence. Section 24 of our Code provides that a person who does something under an honest and reasonable, but mistaken, belief as to a particular fact, they are not criminally responsible to any greater extent than if that belief was correct.
  • Alex Somers, Criminal Law, Traffic Law

High Time For Reform?

A common submission by Queensland defence lawyers representing drug-driving offenders goes something like this: “My client had not in fact smoked cannabis for several days prior to driving, but hangover traces of the drug must have remained in his system, unbeknownst to him."
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law

Hard Cases

Lawyers have this thing they sometimes like to say. “Hard cases make bad law.” It’s true. About thirty years ago I got the job to represent a nice, sweet, softly-spoken lady who stabbed her husband 87 times with a serrated kitchen knife. Not surprisingly he ended up dead as a doornail.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, International, Opinion

Mea Culpa

They say confession is good for the soul. That may be so, but sometimes it seems there's a whole lot of things it's not nearly so good for. Just ask Liam Neeson.
  • Criminal Law

Fool Me Once

There is a Japanese proverb that goes along the lines of “We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance” and as history has shown us we love to dance on April Fool’s Day.
  • Criminal Law, Litigation, Politics

Old School Injustice

A generation ago, corporal punishment at school was commonplace. Canings and strappings that would now turn school mums like me apoplectic were once considered a routine and acceptable means of enforcing discipline and taming the unruly child.
  • Alex Somers, Criminal Law, International, Litigation

Trial By Fyre

A brand new Netflix documentary doing the rounds right now has sparked a maelstrom of controversy around the ethical and legal culpability of “social media influencers” in advertising and promoting business brands for profit. The disaster-doco “FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened” tells the sorry story of the exploits of Billy McFarland, the mastermind behind the failed 2017 “luxury music festival” FYRE.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Opinion

A Cure For The Common Scold

The wheels of Justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine. One of the biggest movies of 1967 was Franco Zeffirelli’s rollicking cinematic rom-com treatment of William Shakespeare’s comedy Taming of the Shrew, written and first performed four centuries earlier in the late 1500’s. The 1967 movie of the same name starred Hollywood’s then hottest couple, the Brangelina of their day, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, as the strong-willed couple Katherina and Petruchio, who are pitched together in a head-long battle of the sexes.For those who need to brush up on their Shakespeare, the Shrew plot follows the efforts of embattled dad Baptista Minola to marry off his two daughters, Bianca and Katherina.
  • Criminal Law, Opinion

Entertainment -v- Evidence

The concept of an impartial jury is central to the operation of our criminal justice system. For hundreds of years we have put our faith in those twelve ordinarily citizens, unbiased and unswayed by extraneous and irrelevant considerations, to stand as the fail-safe system and last line of defence between citizen and state. But of course the key part of that concept is impartiality. For any accused person to have a fair trial, the jury that deliberates on their guilt or innocence must be entirely unbiased and undistracted by any influence beyond the evidence adduced in court.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, International

The Ire Of The Beholder

Like beauty itself, art is undoubtedly very much in the eye of the beholder. A couple of years back, a world-renowned Brisbane-born street artist, whose celebrated work is permanently exhibited in the Australian National Gallery and regularly sells for thousands of dollars in the swank art-houses of Sydney and Melbourne, was accused of painting graffiti at various sites around Brisbane. For his sins he was charged by Queensland police with wilful damage of property.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law

A Certain Uncertainty

It has long been accepted that the element of certainty is essential to the rule of law. Long-standing legal principle dictates that the law should be certain and accessible, so it can be easily enforced and people can know where they stand. But in an ever more complicated world, that task is becoming increasingly complex.
  • Criminal Law, Jonathan Nyst, Sport

The Thin Blue Line

Everyone who’s ever punt-kicked a Sherrin has chimed in to have their say on the recent brew-ha-ha between the West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Dockers. But the controversy may be set to spread far beyond Aussie rules football.