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CONTENTS
Passage History
Purpose
Background
Main Provisions
Endnotes
Contact Officer and Copyright Details
Criminal Code Amendment (Application) Bill
1999
Date Introduced: 24 November 1999
House: House of
Representatives
Portfolio: Attorney-General
Commencement: Royal Assent
To defer
commencement of Chapter 2 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code.
The Model Criminal Code was developed out of a
process commenced in the late 1980s to reform Commonwealth criminal
law. The framework for the code was enacted for the Commonwealth in
the Criminal Code Act 1995. An extensive background to the
Model Criminal Code Project and the Criminal Code Act 1995
is given in the Digest for the Criminal Code Amendment (Theft,
Fraud, Bribery and Related Offences) Bill 1999.
Chapter 2 was the first substantive chapter to
be included in the Criminal Code. It deals with the
general principles of criminal responsibility applying to all
offences created by any law of the Commonwealth. These
principles include the common elements of offences such as conduct
and intention. They also relate to secondary offences such as
attempts, complicity, incitement and conspiracy. In addition they
relate to general issues such as capacity (eg, the age of criminal
responsibility), and the burden and standard of proof.
Subsection 2.2(2) provides that Chapter 2 will
commence 5 years after Royal Assent is given to the Criminal
Code Act 1995. Assent was given on 15 March 1995 so Chapter 2
is due to commence on 16 March 2000. Since it was enacted there has
been some slippage in the implementation timetable of the Model
Criminal Code and the enactment of the remaining Chapters of the
Commonwealth Criminal Code.(1) There have also been
delays in the process of reviewing and/or amending offences in
other Commonwealth Acts so that they comply with the principles
contained in Chapter 2.(2)
Proposed Schedule 1, Item 1
defers the commencement of Chapter 2 until 15 December 2001.
- Criminal Code Amendment (Theft, Fraud, Bribery and Related
Offences) Bill 1999, Second Reading Speech, the Hon.
Darryl Williams, House of Representatives, Debates, 24
November 1999, p 12463. Matthew Goode, 'The Model Criminal Code
Project', Australian Law Librarian, vol. 5(4), 1997, p.
273.
- Criminal Code Amendment (Theft, Fraud, Bribery and Related
Offences) Bill 1999, Second Reading Speech, op cit.
Nathan Hancock
28 January 2000
Bills Digest Service
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ISSN 1328-8091
© Commonwealth of Australia 2000
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