Local Court Bench Book Update 148 published

The Local Court Bench Book is available in PDF or html.

The Foreword has been updated by his Honour Peter Johnstone, Chief Magistrate.

Specific Penalties and Orders has been improved by utilising Lawcodes to generate penalties in some of the maximum penalty tables which will result in efficiencies to the currency of the penalties as they will be automatically updated at the same time as the legislation in Lawcodes.

Sentencing statistics for each offence can be viewed (where available) by clicking on highlighted penalties in the tables. These statistics are updated each quarter, and may provide useful information when sentencing.

Higher court penalties are generally displayed in a separate column to clarify the different penalties between the Local Court and the higher courts (or are indicated in square brackets), where applicable. The tables will continue to have a column specifying whether the offence is a Table 1 or Table 2 offence.

Statistics on JIRS will be used to generate the offence description in the tables which will result in concise, shorter descriptions. The links to the legislation will remain in the event more in-depth information regarding the provision is needed.

For a list of Acts in Specific Penalties and Orders populated by Lawcodes see Introduction.

The Specific Penalties and Orders tables are only available in html. There is a link in the PDF to the Specific Penalties and Orders in html.

Specific Penalties and Orders has been updated to incorporate:

[2-000] Road Transport includes automatic and minimum disqualification periods for offences under Crimes Act 1900 ss 51A, 51B, 52A, 52AB, 53 and 54 at [2-040].

New [4-000] Defended hearings has been included to provide a brief overview of a magistrate’s role to ensure a fair trial and to determine a case on its merits in accordance with the law.

[16-000] General orders includes references to:

[22-000] Apprehended violence orders at [22-220] has been updated to include Wass v DPP (NSW) [2023] NSWCA 71 as authority for the proposition that an application to vary or revoke an order may only be made during the order’s currency, and not after it has expired.

[28-000] Committal proceedings is amended to include Hamilton v DPP [2020] NSWSC 1745 at [28-160], as authority for the proposition that where there is a disagreement as to whether an accused should be committed for trial or sentence on the basis of a factual dispute, the court must determine whether the dispute relates to “essential facts” (the elements of an offence), which requires a trial, or “mere facts”, where the dispute can be resolved on sentence.

[36-000] Proceedings under the Confiscation of Proceeds of Crime Act 1989 has been extensively revised and has been updated as a result of the Confiscation of Proceeds of Crime Legislation Amendment Act 2022. The substantial inclusions are:

The Index, Table of Cases and Table of Statutes have been updated to Update 148.