ACT: Canberra told to reform murder laws

AAP General News (Australia)
08-27-2009
ACT: Canberra told to reform murder laws

CANBERRA, Aug 27 AAP - The ACT government has been told it must introduce a raft of
reforms to address Canberra's dearth of murder convictions over the past decade.

Canberra's questionable strike rate, which has not resulted in a single murder conviction
for more than 10 years, has cast doubts over the strength of territory murder laws.

A month-long inquiry into the issue handed down a list of recommendations on Thursday,
calling on the ACT government to tighten up legislation to put it on a par with the rest
of the country.

But the territory government rejected as complicating an earlier bid by the government
to toughen its laws.

Among calls to increase manslaughter sentences, the committee asks for an expansion
of Canberra's legal definition of murder to include instances where an injury causes death.

Earlier, the ACT Police brought up the 2008 case of Glen Porritt, who killed his mother
after stabbing her multiple times in the head, neck and face, but was found not guilty
of murder.

The judge ruled he had not intended to kill her.

The committee also calls for the government to conduct its own sentencing inquiry,
as well as advising a direct lift in manslaughter sentences from a maximum 20 to 25 years
and from 26 to 31 years in aggravated manslaughter cases.

It argues the ACT Law Reform Advisory Council should be handed greater powers and consideration,
given to uniform murder laws across the country.

"The committee believes that there is some disquiet about elements of the law which
is exacerbated at the time of high profile cases," reads the report, which was tabled
in the ACT Legislative Assembly.

"One of the persistent themes that came out in both written and oral evidence was a
concern that people who had perpetrated violent crimes that resulted in death were not
being sentenced appropriately.

"There is strong support for harmonisation (of the laws)."

The committee rejected perceived community views that Canberra was soft on murderers,
saying the statistics did not back up that view.

It also dismissed the ACT government's attempted changes to draft murder laws, when
it tried to include the causing of serious harm in the murder definition.

The committee declared the change was complicating the debate making it harder to prove
intent before the act itself.

AAP cj/rl/it

KEYWORD: MURDER

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