Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 14. June 20, 1975

From the Courts

page 4

From the Courts

Photo from outside magistrate court

Before D.J. Sullivan SM last week was an ex-varsity student on a charge or breaking and entering. A couple of academic years ago he was studying at this university. He was different from the other students—he asked 'funny' questions in class and other students saw he was different but couldn't understand him and didn't try; so he was given a hard time and generally shunned by others. Seems he lost confidence in himself and disappeared from the campus. He turned up last week in court, which made me very sad and upset because he's been receiving psychiatric treatment for a while. You may or may not be pleased to know I do not always get upset when I hear of persons receiving such treatements. However, on this occasion it seemed to me his condition has been contributed to by some insensitivity on the part of other people, and a lack of understanding as well. Fortunately, such 'cases' are few and far between but it does surely point to the responsibility which we have towards other people. It made me painfully aware of the relevance of the court to my life. These people were once accepted and ordinary people in society, but their criminal record does not change the fact that they are human beings whose circumstances have been influenced by factors within our society. The 'invisible' qualities such as love and understanding (whose meanings can be twisted) can be 'applied' in daily life but cannot be applied in the courtroom because the situation there is totally different and the whole court system does not allow such biases to enter into decisionmaking my the courts. The law does not (and should not) allow him to be excused from the crime he committed, but we should recognise that we can with love and understanding reduce the casualties of life. For the record—he was remanded for sentence as he was continuing to have psychiatric treatment. I did not enjoy writing this but I felt I had to say something at least to show that justice does not belong only in courtrooms.

* * * *

An Australian citizen was up on two charges—one of obtaining credit by fraud, and another of being an illegal immigrant (one thing leads to another ...). Police wanted a remand so they could lay further charges. This seemed to be a pointless exercise since the charges which could have been dealt with reasonably quickly and a deportation order could have been made in chambers in the afternoon rather than keep him on the taxpayer's money for a further period of time—the charge of being an illegal immigrant seemed to be to override the other charge in importance. Though from all accounts his criminal record (in Australia) suggested that the Australians would not want him back anyway.

A common offence in Magistrate's Court is drunkenness in a public place. It is increasingly being recognised as a social rather than criminal or legal problem. Most offenders are convicted and discharged leaving the courtroom in no better condition (apart from being relatively sober) and with no change except one extra conviction on the record sheet. The courts have an interesting power under S48A of Criminal Justice Act, 1954, which enables the court to detain for treatment alcoholics and drug addicts on conviction where their condition forms a necessary element or is a contributing cause to the offence committed. However, the court's use of this section is not satisfactory since I have witnessed cases where the section has been applied and similar cases where it has not been applied. Which suggests either that the court is discriminatory in its use of or reinforces the view that the courts are not the appropriate institution to deal with such people. Their recommendations seem to be given in a similar manner to throwing darts at a dart board.

Leigh Thompson