New Commonweath DPP announced - 15 Nov 2023

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Daily wrap  

• David McBride trial: soldiers shouldn’t be guided by public interest, commonwealth says | Australian military | The Guardian

   

  • Blindly obeying orders ‘ignores Nuremberg’: Whistleblower’s lawyer

     

• Raelene Sharp KC appointment of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions | Our ministers – Attorney-General’s portfolio

   

  • From her chambers profile - “Raelene signed the Bar Roll in 2010, reading with Mark Rochford QC and Dr Stephen Donaghue QC, following an extensive domestic and international practice in criminal, investigative and administrative law. She completed her articles at the OPP in 2000 and, after finishing her Masters in Public International Law (International Criminal Law) in the Netherlands in 2003, she moved to the Australian Crime Commission in 2004. Following two and a half years working for the UN in Lebanon, Raelene returned to the Australian Crime Commission in 2009 before coming to the Bar, where her senior mentor was Peter Hanks QC.”

     

• Deputy State Solicitor Craig Bydder SC appointed Solicitor-General | Western Australian Government

   

• ‘Defensive’ police missed their opportunity, NSW gay hate inquiry told | New South Wales | The Guardian 

   

• Fake lawyer appeals prison sentence – Proctor

   

• ‘Slippery slope’: Queensland lawyers getting worse, watchdog warns

   

• Optus went offline a week ago, but it could be months before they stare down another class action

   

• 'Great in theory but not the solution': Grace Tame slams mandatory minimum sentencing for Tasmanian child sex abusers

   

Editor’s picks

• Calls to reform consent laws to allow sexual assault cases involving intoxication to be prosecuted

   

• Steven Rares, departing Federal Court judge, laments Australia’s ‘lamentably slow’ pace of litigation [FR paywall]

   

• Some interesting catchwords from a recent Perram J judgment - Palmanova Pty Ltd v Commonwealth of Australia [2023] FCA 1391

   

  • CULTURAL HERITAGE – whether Artefact a 'protected object of a foreign country' – whether Artefact part of the movable cultural heritage of Bolivia – whether Artefact made by the Tiwanaku civilisation in the first millennium AD – whether Artefact made at city of Tiwanaku in modern day Bolivia – where Bolivian law prohibited removal of objects from monumental ruins at Tiwanaku and Lake Titicaca after 1906 – whether Artefact exported from Bolivia after 1906.

     

    EVIDENCE – burden of proof in civil case – where multiple competing hypotheses – where events traverse 1500 years of human history.

   

• Pictures from Rares J retirement Ceremonial Sitting.

   

• Animals to be recognised as sentient beings under proposed Victorian cruelty laws | Victoria | The Guardian

   

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The Headnote team

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