Supreme Court of the ACT|2010-12-02

Blundell v Sentence Administration Board of the Australian Capital Territory, The Australian Capital Territory and The Chief Executive of the Department of Justice and Community Safety [2010] ACTSC 151 (2 December 2010)

PAUL ANTHONY BLUNDELL v SENTENCE ADMINISTRATION BOARD OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY, THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY AND THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND COMMUNITY SAFETY

[2010] ACTSC 151 (2 December 2010)

CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE - sentencing - administration of sentencing - parole - purpose of parole - breaches and cancellation - whether pre-parole offences effective to cancel parole order

STATUTORY INTERPRETATION - cancellation of parole, sections 149 and 150 of the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005 (ACT) - legislature intention regarding automatic cancellation of parole - whether a parolee can have their parole automatically cancelled if there are any offences punishable by imprisonment for which the parolee may be convicted while on parole.

STATUTORY INTERPRETATION - cancellation of parole, sections 149 and 150 of the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005 (ACT) - whether the legislation limits the cancellation of parole to convictions while on parole for an offence committed after the offender has been granted parole or whether the legislation provides that parole can be cancelled when a parolee is convicted of an offence during the parole period regardless of when the offence is committed - proper construction: legislation limited to convictions for offences committed after offender has been granted parole.

Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005 (ACT), preamble 4(c), ss 7, 28(1), 53(1), 71(3), 120, 125, 130, 136, 137, 143-156, 160, 161, 171

Rehabilitation of Offenders (Interim) Act 2001 (ACT), ss 61, 62

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, opened for signature 16 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171 6 ILM 386, (entered into force 23 March 1976)

European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, opened for signature 4 November 1950, 213 UNTS 221, arts 5(1), 5(4) (entered into force 3 September 1953)

Mill v The Queen (1988) 166 CLR 59

R v Blundell (unreported, NSWDC, Toner DCJ, 4 Nov 2009)

Maritime Services Board of New South Wales v Australian Chamber of Shipping [1977] 1 NSWLR 648

Bowtell v Goldsbrough, Mort & Co Ltd [1905] HCA 60; (1906) 3 CLR 444

Wacando v Commonwealth of Australia and Anor [1981] HCA 60; (1981) 148 CLR 1

Eastman v Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Justice and Community Safety (2010) 4 ACTLR 161

The Queen v Shrestha [1991] HCA 26; (1991) 173 CLR 48

R (Smith) v Parole Board; R (West) v Parole Board [2005] UKHL 1; [2005] 1 All ER 755

McIntosh v Webster and Anor (1980) 43 FLR 112

Coco v The Queen [1994] HCA 15; (1994) 179 CLR 427

Bropho v State of Western Australia and Anor [1990] HCA 24; (1990) 171 CLR 1

Potter v Minahan [1908] HCA 63; (1908) 7 CLR 277

The Daniels Corporation International Pty Ltd and Anor v Australian Competition and Consumer Commission [2002] HCA 49; (2002) 213 CLR 543

Electrolux Home Products Pty Ltd v The Australian Workers' Union and Ors [2004] HCA 40; (2004) 221 CLR 309

In the matter of an Application for Bail by Isa Islam [2010] ACTSC 147, Penfold J, 19 November 2010

Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Authority [1998] HCA 28; (1998) 194 CLR 355

Hart v Parole Board [1999] 3 NZLR 97

Riley v Commonwealth of Australia and Ors; Butler v Commonwealth of Australia and Ors [1985] HCA 82; (1985) 159 CLR 1

State of Tasmania v Commonwealth of Australia and Anor [1904] HCA 11; (1904) 1 CLR 329

Houssein & Anor v The Under Secretary, Department of Industrial Relations and Technology NSW & Anor; Brown & Anor v The Under Secretary, Department of Industrial Relations and Technology NSW & Anor [1982] HCA 2; (1981-1982) 148 CLR 88

O'Brien v Gillies & Anor [1990] NTSC 22; (1990) 69 NTR 1

R (Brooke) v Parole Board & Anor; R (Murphy) v Parole Board & Anor [2008] EWCA Civ 29; [2008] 3 All ER 289

Nolan v Clifford [1904] HCA 15; (1904) 1 CLR 429

R v Bolton and Anor: Ex parte Beane [1987] HCA 12; (1987) 70 ALR 225

R v Secretary of State for the Home Department: Ex parte Muboyayi [1992] QB 244

Brooks v Director of Public Prosecutions and Anor [1994] 1 AC 568

Sargood Brothers v Commonwealth [1910] HCA 45; (1910) 11 CLR 258

Melbourne Corporation v Barry [1922] HCA 56; (1922) 31 CLR 174

Thompson v Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd and Ors (1994) 54 FCR 513

Thompson v Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd and Ors [1996] HCA 38; (1996) 186 CLR 574

Henderson v McKenzie [2009] ACTSC 39

R (Black) v Secretary of State for Justice [2009] 1 AC 949

Neilsen v Attorney General [2001] NZCA 143; [2001] 3 NZLR 433

Attorney-General v Hewitt [2000] 2 NZLR 110

A v Australia, Communication 560/1993, 3 April 1997

R v Swain [1991] 1 SCR 993

Sunday Times v United Kingdom [1979] ECHR 1; (1979-80) 2 EHRR 245

Huang v Secretary for State for the Home Department [2007] UKHL 11; [2007] 2 AC 167

Pearce DC and Geddes RS, Statutory Interpretation in Australia, (6th ed, LexisNexis Butterworths, 2006

AND: THE SENTENCE ADMINISTRATION BOARD OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

AND: THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND COMMUNITY SAFETY

1. The parties have leave to bring in short minutes of orders in accordance with these reasons.

1. Paul Anthony Blundell has been in trouble with the criminal law on a number of occasions. On 28 May 2008, he was sentenced by this Court to a term of imprisonment totalling three years and six months. The offences for which he was sentenced were for receiving stolen property on 15 November 2007 and for burglary and theft on 26 February 2008. The Court also activated a suspended sentence which had been imposed on 1 May 2007 in respect of an earlier burglary and theft.

2. The Court backdated the sentence under s 63 of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 (ACT) (Sentencing Act) to commence on 8 September 2006 and, under s 65 of the Sentencing Act, set a non-parole period of two years from that date.

3. On 23 September 2008, the first defendant, the Sentence Administration Board of the Australian Capital Territory (the Board), granted Mr Blundell parole, making a parole order containing certain conditions. The conditions included a requirement that he not commit an offence against a Territory law that is punishable by imprisonment. Mr Blundell was released under that order on 30 September 2008.

4. Unfortunately, on 30 October 2008, Mr Blundell committed two further offences of burglary, offences against s 311 of the Criminal Code 2002 (ACT) (Criminal Code) for which the prescribed maximum penalty includes 14 years imprisonment.

5. On 23 April 2008, Mr Blundell pleaded guilty to those charges and an associated charge of theft. The Court noted that these convictions automatically cancelled Mr Blundell's parole order (see s 149 of the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005 (ACT) (Sentence Administration Act)) and, under s 161 of the Sentence Administration Act, the Court placed him in the Chief Executive's custody to serve the statutorily prescribed resulting period of full-time detention.

6. For the offences to which he had pleaded guilty, Mr Blundell was placed under a Deferred Sentence Order to appear again on 3 August 2009, even though by operation of the Sentence Administration Act he was likely to be in custody for at least a significant period of that time.

7. In fact, Mr Blundell applied to the Board for parole on 24 April 2009. Before an inquiry was held into that application, Mr Blundell was charged with knowingly obstructing a Territory public official, an offence contrary to s 361(1) of the Criminal Code and which was punishable by a maximum penalty of a fine of 200 penalty units (at the time a fine of $20,000 - s 133 of the Legislation Act 2001 (ACT)) or imprisonment for two years or both. The offence arose out of an incident with a custodial officer while Mr Blundell was in the Belconnen Remand Centre.

8. On 19 June 2009, he was sentenced by the Magistrates Court on his plea of guilty to this charge to seven months imprisonment to end on 4 August 2009.

9. As it was obliged to do under s 125 of the Sentence Administration Act, the Board held an inquiry into Mr Blundell's application for parole and granted him parole from 4 August 2009 on certain conditions. The parole order noted that Mr Blundell was still under sentence until 29 September 2010. This resulted from the operation of s 160 of the Sentence Administration Act which provides that, if a parole order is cancelled, any time spent on parole is taken not to have served the period of imprisonment that was remaining at the time that parole was granted. This is commonly referred to as providing that "street time does not count".

10. The Deferred Sentence Order brought Mr Blundell back to this Court on 3 August 2009 and he was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment on the two charges (apparently undifferentiated between them) backdated to 2 November 2008 and then suspended after six months and released with a good behaviour order for twelve months and a treatment order under s 123 of the Drugs of Dependence Act 1989 (ACT) for twelve months.

11. As this sentence (and that imposed by the Magistrates Court on 19 June 2009) was imposed prior to the start of Mr Blundell's further parole, the provisions of s 149 of the Sentence Administration Act were not activated.

12. On 4 August 2009, Mr Blundell was released on parole.

13. On 4 November 2009, Mr Blundell appeared in the District Court of New South Wales charged with offences of break and enter with intent to steal and aggravated break enter and steal (aggravated burglary), apparently crimes under ss 112 and 113 of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), each of which attract a sentence of imprisonment of up to 14 years. He entered pleas of guilty to each charge. These offences were both committed on 31 July 2006.

14. Toner DCJ sentenced Mr Blundell. In doing so, his Honour referred to Mill v The Queen (1988) 166 CLR 59 (though in error described in the sentencing remarks as "R v Milne"), and to that court's approval of the following remarks of Street CJ in R v Todd [1982] 2 NSWLR 517 (at 519-20):

... it would be wrong, in my opinion, to disregard the practical situation that the appellant had already served a substantial period of imprisonment in Queensland for offences so closely related in time and character to the Sydney offences ...

... where there has been a lengthy postponement, whether due to an interstate sentence or otherwise, fairness to the prisoner requires weight to be given to the progress of his rehabilitation during the term of his earlier sentence, to the circumstance that he has been left in a state of uncertain suspense as to what will happen to him when in due course he comes up for sentence on the subsequent occasion, and to the fact that sentencing for a stale crime, long after the committing of the offences, calls for a considerable measure of understanding and flexibility of approach - passage of time between offence and sentence, when lengthy, will often lead to considerations of fairness to the prisoner in his present situation playing a dominant role in the determination of what should be done in the matter of sentence; at times this can require what might otherwise be a quite undue degree of leniency being extended to the prisoner.

15. In the sentencing proceedings, R v Blundell (unreported, NSWDC, Toner DCJ, 4 Nov 2009) Toner DCJ commented significantly (at 4-5):

To my mind those comments apply with full measure in this man's case. As I have noted earlier in these reasons, these offences would attract in the normal course of events a significant full time custodial sentence. Given his record it would be hard to find special circumstances. However, given the curial history of these matters, and given that he has served two sentences since their commission and now, and given the conditions imposed on his release in the Australian Capital Territory; and further given that the pre-sentence report notes that he has made some progress towards his own rehabilitation in relatively recent times, and perhaps in part because of the salutary effect of the prison sentences that he has served upon him to my mind the proper course is to sentence him to full time imprisonment but suspend it pursuant to s 12 of the Crimes Sentencing Procedure Act.

16. Mr Blundell was then sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for the aggravated burglary to commence on 4 November 2009 and expire on 3 May 2011 but to be fully suspended upon him entering into a bond to be of good behaviour with supervision conditions. In respect of the break and enter with intent to steal, he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment concurrent with the earlier sentence and also fully suspended upon him entering into a bond to be of good behaviour.

17. Perhaps rather ironically, the last words of his Honour recorded in the sentencing remarks are (at 7):

HIS HONOUR: Yes, well good luck Mr Blundell. Keep out of strife and you won't go to gaol. Get into strife and you will go to gaol, understand that?

OFFENDER: I understand that, thank you your Honour.

18. After he had been granted parole, Mr Blundell's supervising parole officer had submitted to the Board a report dated 8 September 2009 which alleged that Mr Blundell was in breach of his parole obligations by virtue of his possession and use of a prohibited drug or substance.

19. As a result, the Board convened an inquiry under s 146 of the Sentence Administration Act. That inquiry commenced on 29 September 2009 when the Board met and set 20 October 2009 as the date for the inquiry.

20. The inquiry was adjourned on a number of occasions which I do not need to rehearse.

21. By 1 December 2009, the Board had been notified of Mr Blundell's convictions in the District Court of New South Wales. It is not clear whether it had the sentencing remarks of Toner DCJ before it.

22. On 9 February 2010 at the resumed inquiry, the Board cancelled Mr Blundell's parole order under s 150 of the Sentence Administration Act.

23. Understandably, Mr Blundell, being aggrieved by that decision, commenced these proceedings by originating application dated 9 February 2010 in which he sought interlocutory and final relief to stay and set aside the decision of the Board.

24. On that day, the matter came before me and I made an order ex parte staying the operation of the Board's cancellation order under s 16 of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1989 (ACT) and gave directions for the proper preparation of the proceedings, including for service on the defendants.

25. I also permitted Mr Blundell, through his lawyer, to amend the originating application, inter alia, to join the Chief Executive of the Department of Justice and Community Safety as a party for she had a relevant specific statutory role in this matter under s 161 of the Sentence Administration Act.

26. The matter returned to court on 17 February 2010 when the defendants were represented and I adjourned further to 4 March 2010 to ensure that the conditions under which Mr Blundell remained at liberty could be properly addressed since it did not seem to me in the circumstances that I could grant him bail or otherwise condition his release.

27. On 4 March 2010 I ordered, with the agreement of the parties, that the effect of the order suspending the Board's cancellation order was that Mr Blundell remained on parole as if the parole order had not been cancelled. I also restrained the Board, until further order, from conducting any inquiries into any alleged breaches of his parole order prior to 9 February 2010. I also made directions for the preparation of the matter for hearing.

28. The orders then sought by Mr Blundell at the hearing were:

An order under section 5 of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1989 (ACT) to quash or set aside the first defendant's decision to cancel the plaintiff's parole order.
An order under Section 40C of the Human Rights Act 2004 that the first defendant's cancellation of the plaintiff's parole order pursuant to Section 150 of the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005 be quashed.
A declaration or order pursuant to Section 40C of the Human Rights Act 2004 that the first defendant's cancellation of the plaintiff's parole order was made contrary to the plaintiff's rights under sections 12, 13, 18(1), 18(2), 24 and 25 of the Human Rights Act 2004; and was contrary to section 7 of the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act;

A declaration pursuant to section 32 of the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) that section 150 of the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005 is not consistent with the human rights in sections 12 and/or 13 and/or 18 and/or 24 and/or 25 of the Human Rights Act ("a section 32 declaration of incompatibility");

29. The matter came on for hearing on 12 May 2010 and I reserved my decision.

30. The Board is established by s 171 of the Sentence Administration Act. All sections, parts, divisions and chapters referred to in these reasons for judgment hereafter are from this Act unless otherwise specified.

31. Although it is a public authority within the meaning of s 40 of the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) (Human Rights Act), the Board is not specified to be a body corporate; it appears to be an unincorporated body. As such, it cannot be a party to the proceedings: Maritime Services Board of New South Wales v Australian Chamber of Shipping [1977] 1 NSWLR 648 (at 658-9). None of the parties before me took the point. As the Territory can be a party (s 7 of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 (Cth)) and is a party to these proceedings, no remediable harm is done and I shall make appropriate consequential orders and directions to resolve any difficulties caused by this situation.

32. The functions of the Board are set out in various chapters of the Sentence Administration Act. In this case, ch 7 is relevant because it deals with Parole.

33. There are also procedural provisions under ch 9 which provide how the Board is to conduct itself. None of these are presently relevant.

34. Under s 120, the Board may make parole orders for an offender. Once released on parole, an offender is subject to core conditions of the parole order set out in s 137 as well as any additional conditions on the parole order that the Board may make under s 130.

35. Two relevant core conditions, as set out in s 137, are:

(a) the offender must not commit -

(i) an offence against a territory law, or a law of the Commonwealth, a State or another Territory, that is punishable by imprisonment; or

(ii) an offence outside Australia against a law of a place outside Australia that, if it had been committed in Australia, would be punishable by imprisonment;

(b) if the offender is charged with an offence against a law in force in Australia or elsewhere - the offender must tell the chief executive about the charge as soon as possible, but within 2 days after the day the offender becomes aware of the charge;

36. I pause to note that the parole order made in respect of Mr Blundell on 28 July 2009, authorising his release on 4 August 2009, contained additional conditions but none are relevant to these proceedings.

37. Part 7.5 makes provision for change of parole obligation or cancellation of parole orders. Cancellation ends the parole order and requires the offender to serve by full-time detention the period of imprisonment remaining to be served on the date on which the offender is released on parole: s 160.

38. Part 7.4.2 is entitled "Breach of parole obligations" but includes ss 149 and 150 with which I will later deal. They might be said to be outside the obligations specified in the core conditions and, at least in this case, any additional conditions. If so, they would not be part of the "parole obligations" referred to in this Part.

39. Section 146 (in Part 7.4.2) authorises the Board to conduct an inquiry to determine whether an offender has breached any parole obligations. If it so finds, s 148 gives the Board various powers, from taking no further action to cancelling the parole order.

40. Section 149, however, provides for automatic cancellation and s 150 provides a similar requirement. These sections are in the following terms:

149 Automatic cancellation of parole order for ACT offence

(1) This section applies if, while an offender's parole order is in force, the offender is convicted or found guilty by a court of an offence against a territory law that is punishable by imprisonment.

(2) The parole order is automatically cancelled when the offender is convicted or found guilty of the offence.

150 Cancellation of parole order for non-ACT offence

(1) This section applies if, while an offender's parole order is in force, the board decides that the offender has been convicted or found guilty of -

(a) an offence against a law of the Commonwealth, a State or another Territory that is punishable by imprisonment; or

(b) an offence outside Australia against a law of a place outside Australia that, if it had been committed in Australia, would be punishable by imprisonment.

(2) Without limiting section 148 (Board powers - breach of parole obligations), the board must cancel the offender's parole order as soon as practicable under that section.

41. If an offender's parole is cancelled, then s 161 requires that the Board must order that the offender be placed in the Chief Executive's custody to serve by full-time custody the term of imprisonment that was remaining to be served at the date on which the offender was released on parole.

42. The issue in the proceedings is quite a narrow one. The question is whether s 150 of the Sentence Administration Act (and, almost certainly also, s 149) applies where the offence of which the offender is convicted while the parole order is in force must have been committed after the parole order was made or whether any offence committed prior to that date is encompassed within the operation of these sections.

43. That is to say, when a person is granted parole, is that person at risk of having the parole order automatically cancelled if there are any offences punishable by imprisonment in his or her past for which he or she may be convicted while on parole?

44. Mr J Burnside QC, who appeared with Mr M Kukulies-Smith for Mr Blundell, submitted that the issue could be resolved in accordance with the ordinary rules of statutory construction and the sections were limited to convictions while the offender was subject to a parole order for an offence committed only after he or she had been granted parole.

45. He submitted that a literal reading of the section meant that the subordinate clause "while an offender's parole order is in force" must apply to and qualify the verb in the other subordinate clause, namely "the board decides", especially as it is not only closest to that verb but also within the subordinate conjunction that joins the main clause to the subordinate clause, namely "if". This would be the ordinary and literally correct reading of the first words of s 150(1).

46. This must be correct for if the subordinate clause was meant to qualify the second subordinate clause (namely "that the offender has been convicted ..."), then it would have been placed next to or near the verb in that subordinate clause, such as to read something like "The section applies if the Board decides that an offender has, while the offender's parole order is in force, been convicted ...".

47. It is no answer to say that colloquial English is careless about the placement of such subordinate clauses and absurdity is often rejected by the hearers of spoken English or carelessly written English who can inferentially re-interpret such sentences to be meaningful. This is legislation, however, prepared by professional drafters whose business is words and the use of accurate English.

48. He submitted that this construction would be absurd in operation, for it would mean that the Board would be mandatorily required to cancel the parole order if it made a decision during the currency of the parole order that the offender had been convicted or found guilty of a relevant offence, namely one for which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed (even if not actually imposed). That offence, apparently on this reading, could have been committed and the offender convicted 20 years ago. Indeed, as another absurdity, the literal meaning would include in such offences, the original offence in respect of which the parole order had been made.

49. Mr Burnside QC, then submitted that the absurdity should be resolved on the ordinary principles of statutory construction. That is to say, resort should be had to s 139 of the Legislation Act, which provides:

139 Interpretation best achieving Act's purpose

(1) In working out the meaning of an Act, the interpretation that would best achieve the purpose of the Act is to be preferred to any other interpretation.

(2) This section applies whether or not the Act's purpose is expressly stated in the Act.

50. Sub-section (2) is not relevant here for, as Mr Burnside QC noted, the Sentence Administration Act does express its purpose. This, he submitted, was to be found in the Preamble, especially clause 4(c). Clause 4 provides:

The management of sentenced offenders, and people remanded or otherwise detained in lawful custody, should contribute to the maintenance of a just and democratic society, particularly as follows:

(a) by ensuring justice, security and good order in the correctional system;

(b) by ensuring that the harm suffered by victims, and their need for protection, are considered appropriately in making decisions about the management of offenders;

(c) by promoting the rehabilitation of offenders and their reintegration into society;

(d) by ensuring that offenders, remandees and other people detained in lawful custody are treated in a decent, humane and just way.

51. It does not matter whether one takes the older, narrower approach to a preamble, as in Bowtell v Goldsbrough, Mort & Co Ltd [1905] HCA 60; (1906) 3 CLR 444, where Griffith CJ said (at 451):

... where the words of a Statute are plain and clear, their meaning cannot be cut down by reference to the preamble. But, if the words are uncertain as applied to the subject matter, and may bear more than one meaning, then you may, in a proper case, refer to the preamble to ascertain what was the occasion for the alteration of the law.

which Gibbs CJ expressly endorsed in Wacando v Commonwealth [1981] HCA 60; (1981) 148 CLR 1 (at 16), or the more modern, wider view articulated in Wacando v Commonwealth by Mason J (as his Honour then was) in the following terms (at 23):

It has been said that where the enacting part of a statute is clear and unambiguous it cannot be cut down by the preamble. But this does not mean that a court cannot obtain assistance from the preamble in ascertaining the meaning of an operative provision. The particular section must be seen in its context; the statute must be read as a whole and recourse to the preamble may throw light on the statutory purpose and object.

It seems to me that it is entirely permissible to have regard to the preamble to assist in the construction of an ambiguous provision in the Act. See Eastman v Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Justice and Community Safety (2010) 4 ACTLR 161 (at [56]-[57]).

52. Mr Burnside QC also relied on the nature of parole which had been described by the High Court in The Queen v Shrestha [1991] HCA 26; (1990-1991) 173 CLR 48 in the following terms (at 67-8):

The basic theory of the parole system is that, notwithstanding that a sentence of imprisonment is the appropriate punishment for the particular offence in all the circumstances of a case, considerations of mitigation or rehabilitation may make it unnecessary, or even undesirable, that the whole of that sentence should actually be served in custody. In some cases, of course, those considerations may be so compelling at the time of sentencing that, consistently with the need for punishment and deterrence, any sentence of imprisonment should be suspended or deferred upon entry into a good behaviour bond or recognizance, with the result that imprisonment may never take place. In most cases, however, a suspension or deferral of the appropriate term of imprisonment will not be justified. In such an event ... the parole system allows for a review of the offender's case after he has actually served a significant part of a custodial sentence, for the purpose of deciding whether he should be released on parole at that stage. At the time of that review, the reviewing authority should have available to it up-to-date information about the prisoner's conduct while in custody, his current attitudes, his present circumstances and the prospects of his rehabilitation in the community if he be released on parole. Obviously, a reviewing authority with that up-to-date information should be in a better position to determine whether it is appropriate that the prisoner be then released on parole than the sentencing judge would have been at the time, often years before, when the head sentence of imprisonment was imposed and a minimum non-parole period was fixed.

53. This approach was the same as that applied in the UK. In R (Smith) v Parole Board [2005] UKHL 1; [2005] 1 All ER 755 (heard with R (West) v Parole Board and often referred to by this name), Lord Bingham of Cornhill (with whom the other members of the House of Lords agreed), identified the same issues, importantly identifying (at [22] to [26]) a series of "fundamental and relevant principles" upon which the regime rests, one of them (at [25]) being:

While, fourthly, it is true that early release provisions have the practical effect of relieving overcrowding in the prisons, that is not their penal justification. But such justification exists. All, or almost all, determinate sentence prisoners are expected to return to the community on release from prison after serving their sentences. It is in the interests of society that they should, after release, live law-abiding, orderly and useful lives. For a host of practical, psychological and social reasons, the process of transition from custody to freedom is often very difficult for the prisoner. It is accordingly very desirable that the process of transition should be professionally supervised, to maximise the chances of the ex-prisoner's successful reintegration into the community and minimise the chances of his relapse into criminal activity. But of course there will be cases in which such professional supervision may not be, or appear to be, effective. If a prisoner is released, subject to conditions, before the expiry date of the sentence imposed by the court, and he does not comply, or appears not to comply, with the conditions to which his release was subject, a question will arise whether, in the interests of society as a whole, he should continue to enjoy the advantages of release.

54. As Mr Burnside QC submitted, what was clear from these principles is that at the time when parole is granted and being undertaken, an important factor is the current attitude of the offender and the current likelihood of offending. This, he submitted, was inconsistent with an automatic termination of parole by conviction of an offence (punishable by imprisonment, even if not imposed) committed by the offender five or 10 or 50 years ago. Such a conviction may tell the parole authorities nothing about the offender's likelihood of reoffending or being rehabilitated.

55. It might be observed that, as in this case, because Mr Blundell voluntarily surrendered to the District Court of New South Wales, an inference might be able to be drawn that he was making progress towards recognising that he had to take responsibility for his actions and deal with the offences in his past so that he had a chance of moving into a rehabilitated lifestyle. Mr Burnside QC described it as:

[incongruous] that the later conviction, which was the result of him putting himself forward when he was released on parole and therefore available to put himself forward ... should result in the cancellation of his parole.

56. Further, had Mr Blundell simply waited for the expiry of his parole on 29 September 2010 and then presented himself to the District Court, he could not have had his parole order cancelled and been required to serve a further period in custody as a result. Section 151, which sensibly deals with those offences committed while on parole but which cannot be finalised in court until after the expiry of the parole order, makes appropriate provision. Because of s 151(1)(b), it expressly does not, however, apply to offences committed before (or after) the parole period. The section provides, relevantly:

(1) This section applies to an offender if the offender's parole order has ended other than by cancellation and, after the order ends, the board decides that -

(a) the offender has been convicted or found guilty of -

(i) an offence against a territory law, or a law of the Commonwealth, a State or another Territory that is punishable by imprisonment; or

(ii) an offence against a law of a place outside the ACT that, if it had been committed in the ACT, would be punishable by imprisonment; and

(b) the offence was committed while the offender's parole order was in force.

(2) The board -

(a) must decide the date, or the earliest date, when the offence was committed; and

(b) is taken to have cancelled the offender's parole on order under section 148 (Board powers - breach of parole obligations) on that date.

57. It is, of course, possible that an earlier offence, unknown to the Board at the time of granting parole, is of such significance that it would have, had it been known, substantially affected the decision of the Board to grant parole. Examples might include offences of the same type as that for which the offender was sentenced and in which sentence he was granted parole in part by submitting that it was a "one off" or isolated example of offending where multiplicity of offending is a particular problem (such as sexual offences or dishonesty offences). Such an earlier offence, later discovered and prosecuted, may have affected the Board's assessment of the likelihood of reoffending. Mr Burnside QC submitted that this could already be dealt with under s 153 where the Board may at any time conduct a review of an offender's parole and, after doing so, may, under s 156, take a range of actions including, if it decides "that parole is, or would be, no longer suitable for the offender", cancel the parole order.

58. Such an approach avoids the operation of the Act for which the defendants contend, namely that there is an automatic, perhaps arbitrary, cancellation of parole because of the conviction during the parole period for an older offence. Indeed, the approach for which Mr Burnside QC submitted permits the more nuanced, perhaps more rights compliant approach, whereby first an inquiry is held and the Board can consider the real effect on an offender's parole of the older offence.

59. This is, perhaps, strengthened when one considers the range of offences for which some term of imprisonment (even if rarely imposed) is provided. These include: minor theft (s 321 of the Criminal Code), drink-driving at level 3 (that is, 0.08g per ml blood alcohol concentration or more but less than 0.15 g) (s 26 Road Transport (Alcohol and Drugs) Act 1977 (ACT)), keeping an animal after disqualified from doing so (s 138A(6) of the Domestic Animals Act 2000 (ACT)) or being a birth parent of an adopted child and influencing the upbringing of the child (s 91 of the Adoption Act 1993 (ACT)). There are many more.

60. I suggested that the express reference to the date of commission of the offence in s 151(1)(b), when compared with the absence of such a qualifier in s 150, might mean that I could more comfortably draw the inference that the legislature intended there to be no temporal limitation on when the offence was committed for the purposes of s 150. Mr Burnside QC pointed out that without the reference in s 151 to a temporal limitation, the offence could be committed years after the expiry of the parole period with which it had no connection and that could not be correct. Thus, the reference to time was necessary as the Board was considering the matter after the expiry of the parole period, not during it, which was the case under s 150. No implication could, accordingly, be drawn from this.

61. He submitted further that the legislation seemed to proceed on the assumption that the date of conviction would be temporally close to the commission of the offence. If that were always true, s 150 would make more sense.

62. The automatic cancellation is arbitrary, Mr Burnside QC submitted, because the likely effect on whether parole would have been granted in the first place, had the offence then been known, is not uniform: in some cases, indeed, Mr Burnside QC submitted that Mr Blundell's case was one where, the likelihood of parole not having been granted would be remote.

63. Mr Burnside QC supported this submission by reference to the transcript of the hearing before the Board on 9 February 2010 when it cancelled Mr Blundell's parole order, where the Chair of the Board said:

We do not believe that we have any alternative but to cancel the parole order, and I note your submissions, as forceful as they are. I really don't think they get us over the hurdle that section 150 seems to present the Board with. It's most unfortunate and it's a matter of regret, as far as the Board is concerned, that we are constrained as we are by the legislation. We have considered this matter in some detail over the last couple of months. We have had the benefit of submissions from the other parties in the last couple of months on this matter.

...

So I'd have to say that from our perspective we believe that today we have no option but to cancel the parole order and I think we then need to think about how we might proceed from there. If the parole order is cancelled there is an opportunity to start afresh a new process which might get Mr Blundell released on a new parole order at the earliest possible opportunity. Having regard to the circumstances, it's the Board's view that we should act expeditiously and as quickly as possible to overcome the effects of section 150.

1"> 64. It is clear that the Board was there concluding that it was unlikely that, had it a discretion, it would have cancelled the parole order on 9 February 2010 and that it would now proceed as quickly as possible to follow the statutory processes with a view to granting another parole order. It is difficult to construe the Chair's comment "as quickly as possible to overcome the effects of section 150" in any other way.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that the Board has to do, in terms of considering that application. We are required to set the matter down for Inquiry and we are required to notify the Chief Executive and the DPP of our intention to hold an Inquiry. And we are required to notify any victims that might be registered, in order to give them the opportunity to be heard. So unfortunately, that does give us a period of time where we have to go through that process and the earliest that we think that we can do that would not be till about 23 March would be the earliest possible [date for a parole hearing].

66. Thus, as a result of the conviction, Mr Blundell was incarcerated from 9 February 2010 to at least 23 March 2010, depriving him of his liberty for a not inconsiderable period.

67. It was put to Mr Burnside QC that, despite the current arrangements, the inevitable deprivation of liberty might (perhaps by legislative change) be able to be made minimal (a day or so) and that this might be justified in order to ensure that the Board had the time to inquire whether the effect of the conviction was serious or not.

68. Mr Burnside QC pointed out that even a short period of detention is sufficient to found an action for false imprisonment. I note that an hour was held unlawful in McIntosh v Webster and Anor (1980) 43 FLR 112 (at 126).

69. It is also worth noting that, in fact, Mr Blundell was sentenced by the District Court of New South Wales on 4 November 2009, but the Board did not cancel his parole order until 9 February 2010, more than three months later, though Mr Blundell remained on parole during this period.

70. The right to liberty was important, submitted Mr Burnside QC, because the courts will not generally construe legislation as diminishing fundamental rights and freedoms unless the meaning admits of no alternative. In the High Court, in Coco v The Queen [1994] HCA 15; (1994) 179 CLR 427, the plurality said (at 437):

The insistence on express authorization of an abrogation or curtailment of a fundamental right, freedom or immunity must be understood as a requirement for some manifestation or indication that the legislature has not only directed its attention to the question of the abrogation or curtailment of such basic rights, freedoms or immunities but has also determined upon abrogation or curtailment of them. The courts should not impute to the legislature an intention to interfere with fundamental rights. Such an intention must be clearly manifested by unmistakable and unambiguous language. General words will rarely be sufficient for that purpose if they do not specifically deal with the question because, in the context in which they appear, they will often be ambiguous on the aspect of interference with fundamental rights. [See Chu Kheng Lim v Minister for Immigration Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (1992) 176 CLR 1 at p 12, per Mason CJ.

71. See also Bropho v State of Western Australia and Anor [1990] HCA 24; (1990) 171 CLR 1 (at 18) where the unanimous High Court adopted the rationale for the rule expressed in Potter v Minahan [1908] HCA 63; (1908) 7 CLR 277 (at 304) as founded on the assumption that:

[It is] in the last degree improbable that the legislature would overthrow fundamental principles, infringe rights, or depart from the general system of law, without expressing its intention with irresistible clearness; and to give any such effect to general words, simply because they have that meaning in their widest, or usual, or natural sense, would be to give them a meaning in which they were not really used.

72. Reference was also made to more recent authorities: The Daniels Corporation International Pty Ltd and Anor v Australian Competition and Consumer Commission [2002] HCA 49; (2002) 213 CLR 543 (at [43]) and Electrolux Home Products Pty Ltd v The Australian Workers' Union and Ors [2004] HCA 40; (2004) 221 CLR 309 (at [21]). The latter reference is important, for Gleeson CJ there noted:

The presumption is not merely a common sense guide to what a Parliament in a liberal democracy is likely to have intended; it is a working hypothesis, the existence of which is known both to Parliament and the courts, upon which statutory language will be interpreted. The hypothesis is an aspect of the rule of law.

73. It might be added that this is even more likely and appropriate in this jurisdiction which has enacted the Human Rights Act, enacted before the Sentence Administration Act, and which latter Act expressly refers in its preamble to the Human Rights Act, and the compliance with it that is required.

74. Mr Burnside QC submitted that the liberty, freedom of movement and freedom of family life that were to be respected were nonetheless to be respected even though they were exercised contingently when an offender was on parole. His submission was that, given the importance of the freedoms, it is not likely that they could be removed by considerations not expressly articulated in the legislation and apparently irrelevant to the purposes for which the power to deprive an offender of liberty was granted. That makes the power, he submitted, an exercise in arbitrariness.

75. Thus, Mr Burnside QC submitted, the provision as construed in accordance with the approach adopted by the Board would breach at least the rights set out in ss 11, 13 and 18 of the Human Rights Act with no justification that would be permitted under s 28 of that Act.

76. Dr M Perry QC, who appeared with Ms K Walker for the defendants, submitted that the defendants contended that s 150 should be interpreted to provide for automatic cancellation of a parole order when a parolee is convicted of an offence, whenever the offence is committed, provided the conviction is entered during the parole period.

77. She further submitted that the approach to construction of legislation in the context of the Human Rights Act was to apply the following process, namely:

(a) to determine whether the relevant legislative provision affects, impinges upon or diminishes a relevant human right applying ordinary canons of statutory construction;

(b) if so, ascertain whether that apparent inconsistency is justified; and

(c) if the apparent inconsistency is not justified, to determine whether it is nonetheless possible to construe the provision consistently with Parliament's intended meaning in a manner which is not incompatible with the human right i.e. which does not result in an unjustified limitation on the relevant human right. In this regard, s 30 of the HRA permits an interpretation that may not best promote purposes but is consistent with it.

This was the process approved of by Besanko J (with whom Gray P and Penfold J agreed) in R v Fearnside [2009] 3 ACTLR 25 (at [89]).

78. This approach, Dr Perry QC submitted, differed from that of the Victorian Court of Appeal in R v Momcilovic [2010] VSCA 50; (2010) 265 ALR 751. She submitted both that I was bound to follow R v Fearnside and that the approach in R v Momcilovic was incorrect, on which I do not have to dilate, much less decide. I note that, recently, in In the matter of an Application for Bail by Islam [2010] ACTSC 147, Penfold J (at [136] to [143], [229] to [231]) was inclined to follow the Victorian decision in preference to R v Fearnside. As I have not heard argument on this, I will not make a decision on this issue. In any event, it seems to me that all I am doing in this case is contained in step 1 of the approach approved by Penfold J (at [236]), for in this case there are only two meanings to be considered, though perhaps with some reference to step 4. I do not consider that the result I reach would ultimately be affected by which approach I apply.

79. Dr Perry QC submitted that it is first necessary to construe the legislation and, for this, the purpose of the legislation is a necessary component. It was not necessary to have an ambiguity before the purpose was considered. In this, she relied on Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Authority [1998] HCA 28; (1998) 194 CLR 355 where the

The primary object of statutory construction is to construe the relevant provision so that it is consistent with the language and purpose of all the provisions of the statute. The meaning of the provision must be determined "by reference to the language of the instrument viewed as a whole". In Commissioner for Railways (NSW) v Agalianos [(1955) [1955] HCA 27; 92 CLR 390 at 397], Dixon CJ pointed out that "the context, the general purpose and policy of a provision and its consistency and fairness are surer guides to its meaning than the logic with which it is constructed". Thus, the process of construction must always begin by examining the context of the provision that is being construed.

A legislative instrument must be construed on the prima facie basis that its provisions are intended to give effect to harmonious goals. Where conflict appears to arise from the language of particular provisions, the conflict must be alleviated, so far as possible, by adjusting the meaning of the competing provisions to achieve that result which will best give effect to the purpose and language of those provisions while maintaining the unity of all the statutory provisions. Reconciling conflicting provisions will often require the court "to determine which is the leading provision and which the subordinate provision, and which must give way to the other". Only by determining the hierarchy of the provisions will it be possible in many cases to give each provision the meaning which best gives effect to its purpose and language while maintaining the unity of the statutory scheme.

Furthermore, a court construing a statutory provision must strive to give meaning to every word of the provision. In The Commonwealth v Baume [(1905) [1905] HCA 11; 2 CLR 405 at 414] Griffith CJ cited R v Berchet [(1688) 1 Shaw KB 106 [1794] EngR 1806; [89 ER 480]] to support the proposition that it was "a known rule in the interpretation of Statutes that such a sense is to be made upon the whole as that no clause, sentence, or word shall prove superfluous, void, or insignificant, if by any other construction they may all be made useful and pertinent".

(Footnotes omitted except where in square brackets.)

80. Dr Perry QC then proceeded to submit that what she said was the correct construction of s 150 of the Sentence Administration Act.

81. She submitted that the correct construction was that, as the defendants contend, the section applied when the offender is convicted of an offence in another jurisdiction while on parole, regardless of when the offence was committed. There was, she submitted, no limit expressed in the section on when the offence could have been committed and none should be read into the section.

82. She referred to the symmetry between ss 149 and 150. The terms of the sections are set out at [40] above.

83. Dr Perry QC submitted that there is no ambiguity or absurdity of the period identified by Mr Burnside QC in the placing of the subordinate clause in s 149 and, grammatically, it is clear that the relevant time of a conviction under that section is while the parole order is in force. She submitted that the only relevant difference between the two sections, ss 149 and 150, was that the ACT legislature could not require an interstate court to cancel an ACT parole order, hence the need to give a decision-making power to the Board.

84. As a result, she submitted that the two sections should be read in the same way, namely that the subordinate clause "while the offender's parole order is in force" should modify the offender's date of conviction in both sections by specifying the time when it may occur.

85. This, she submitted, was clear from the history of the provisions and she referred to the relevant sections in the predecessor legislation, the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Interim) Act 2001 (ACT) (ROO Act). The relevant sections were ss 61 and 62 of that Act which provided:

61. Parole order revoked if parolee sentenced to imprisonment

If a sentenced offender is subject to a parole order, the order is automatically revoked if the offender is -

(a) convicted of an offence (including an offence against the law of the Commonwealth, a State or another Territory) committed during the parole period; and

(b) sentenced to a term of imprisonment that is not completely suspended.

Parole order revoked if former parolee sentenced to imprisonment for offence committed while order in force

(1) This section applies if a person who has been subject to a parole order is -

(a) convicted of an offence (including an offence against the law of the Commonwealth, a State or another Territory) committed while the parole order was in force; and

(b) sentenced to a term of imprisonment for the offence that is not completely suspended.

(2) The parole order is automatically revoked with effect from the date the offence was committed.

86. These provisions are considerably narrower than ss 149 and 150 of the Sentence Administration Act on several counts.

87. What is relevant, of course, is that the legislature in both s 61(a) and (b) of the ROO Act had enacted expressly that the conviction is in respect of an offence "committed during the parole period" or (which relevantly seems identical) "while the parole order was in force". Thus, the submission was that, in these circumstances, it is harder to find that the legislature had inadvertently omitted in ss 149 and 150 a reference to the conviction being for an offence committed "while the parole order was in force", or "because it was too obvious", rather than deliberately omitting it. The earlier legislation, which the Sentence Administration Act replaced, had expressly set out that qualification as to when the offence had to have been committed.

88. In reply, Mr Burnside QC, pointed out that the differences between the ROO Act and the Sentence Administration Act amounted to "a major policy shift" if the defendants' construction was to be accepted but, on investigation of the Explanatory Statement and Presentation Speech, there was no attention drawn to that significant change which, of course, could substantially affect the liberty of persons in the Territory. This, he submitted, was so surprising that it could be considered in the interpretation process and to support his submission.

89. Dr Perry QC submitted that the clear statement in s 149 meant that the Court should read s 150 in the same way, for Parliament's intention was "absolutely clear". As she noted, no-one had suggested that the Board should make an open-ended decision of the kind suggested by Mr Burnside QC (in [48] above).

90. Nevertheless, I do note that there is also a similar symmetry between ss 149 and 150 on the one hand and s 151 on the other where, in the former, the decision of the Board is to be made "while the offender's parole order is in force" and in the latter, "if the offender's parole order has ended". That is to say that s 151 applies to convictions both by ACT and interstate courts as envisaged respectively by ss 149 and 150 but only when such a conviction occurs after the parole order has expired and in this way imports a particular symmetry between ss 149 and 150 on the one hand and s 151 on the other.

91. Applying this approach, ss 149 and 150 are contrasted with s 151 because they cover the situation where the conviction is recorded during the parole period while s 151 covers the period when it has expired. This is the contrast between them. It says nothing about when the offence is required to have been committed leaving it open to the construction proposed by Mr Burnside QC. Indeed, the reference in s 151 to the offence having to have been committed during the period when the parole order is in force is not contrasted to that situation in ss 149 and 150 but might, indeed, be suggested to imply that it is the same because of the symmetry between the sections.

92. Dr Perry QC, in response to reference by Mr Burnside QC to s 153, relied on the fact that the powers available to the Board under that section as he submitted (see [57] above) would suggest that ss 149 and 150 were unnecessary. However, while the Board could use the powers given to it under s 153 in the circumstances referred to in ss 149 and 150, these latter sections express a specific legislative policy to require automatic cancellation rather than permit a discretion and thus allow non-cancellation. Therefore, in the circumstances they deal with, they are the legislature's directive to achieve a particular result, namely automatic cancellation, and the decision is not left to the Board's discretion under s 153. In any event, if that is not accepted and, as Dr Perry QC submitted, if the powers under s 153 render ss 149 and 150 unnecessary, that is the current situation and does not assist the interpretation of ss 149 and 150 for which she contends.

93. Dr Perry QC also countered the approach of Mr Burnside QC that the automatic cancellation was an arbitrary deprivation of liberty by accepting that there will be circumstances where the automatic cancellation will be harsh but noted that this traded off the benefit that, because "street time" did not count, the offender at least had the benefit that the time he or she was in custody, pending parole review, was part of serving the sentence rather than not.

94. While this is true, it seems to me that this does not meet two problems that are exposed in Mr Blundell's case. Firstly, if, as appears to be the case from the remarks of the Chair of the Board (at [63] above), the Board would not have cancelled the parole order because of the conviction, then the offender should not have to serve any part of the balance of the original sentence in full-time custody. Secondly, Mr Blundell was not in custody during the period between the New South Wales sentence and the Board hearing (over three months) in any event. This was, from his perspective, "wasted time". Indeed, he continued to serve his parole order, apparently showing in this time that he could generally comply with its conditions, but which time cannot in any sense count towards any service of his sentence.

95. Dr Perry QC submitted that the Act proceeds on the basis that when a conviction occurs there is a legislative presumption that there is a risk to the community and the parole order is cancelled, thus requiring the offender to re-apply for parole so that a further risk assessment can be re-done with the knowledge of this offence. There is, of course, she submitted, no possibility that the offender could actually serve a longer period in full-time custody than the head sentence originally imposed by the Court.

96. While that policy may arguably be discerned from a particular construction of the legislation, there was nothing that Dr Perry QC pointed to, either in the Explanatory Statement or in the Presentation Speech, or in any other relevant extrinsic material, which identified such a policy. This then becomes a little circular, for the policy (or purpose) used to determine the construction comes from the particular construction of the legislation for which the defendants contend and is the very issue I have to determine.

97. Dr Perry QC, however, submitted that the policy could be discerned from a number of matters. These were:

(1) the lack of temporal qualification to the word "offence" in ss 149 and 150;

(3) the fact that s 120(1) requires the Board to have regard to the principle that the public interest is of primary importance;

(4) the fact that s 120(2) makes the assessment of risk a major concern for the Board: see pars (b) (the offender's antecedents), (i) (likelihood of reoffending) and (j) (likelihood of breaching conditions of parole); this has to temper the concern for rehabilitation and reintegration.

(5) while the parole period is an amelioration of the punishment, it cannot be said that the full term (commonly called the head sentence) is other than a proper sentence imposed for the seriousness of the offence. Dr Perry QC relied on the passage from The Queen v Shrestha (see [52] above) for this and also the first principle enunciated in R (Smith) v Parole Board, namely that "the ordinary duty of the court when imposing a determinate sentence of imprisonment is to impose such term ... as in the opinion of the court is commensurate with the seriousness of the offence".

98. Dr Perry QC confirmed that there was no further material that evidenced the policy which she submitted justified the construction of s 150 for which the defendants contend.

99. Dr Perry QC then referred to the question of whether any of the rights in the Human Rights Act were infringed by s 150.

100. As to the right to liberty in s 18 of the Human Rights Act, Dr Perry QC submitted that there was no breach by operation of s 150, where the parole is automatically cancelled by virtue of a conviction during the parole period of the parolee of a pre-parole offence because, although there was a change from conditional liberty to re-imprisonment, the legal authority for the imprisonment remained the original sentence. The original sentence makes the detention lawful and that is not imposed in breach of s 18 of the Human Rights Act.

101. That is to say, all that occurs when there is a revocation of parole is that the person is required to serve the sentence already imposed by the court. That sentence is not an arbitrary interference with the right to liberty.

102. She relied on the comment by Lord Bingham of Cornhill in R (Smith) v Parole Board where (at [36]) his Lordship said:

It seems to me plain that in cases such as the appellants' the sentence of the trial court satisfies art 5(1) [of the European Convention on Human Rights] not only in relation to the initial term served by the prisoner but also in relation to revocation and recall, since conditional release subject to the possibility of recall formed an integral component of the composite sentence passed by the court.

Blundell v Sentence Administration Board of the Australian Capital Territory, The Australian Capital Territory and The Chief Executive of the Department of Justice and Community Safety [2010] ACTSC 151

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Judgment (323 paragraphs)

Blundell v Sentence Administration Board of the Australian Capital Territory, The Australian Capital Territory and The Chief Executive of the Department of Justice and Community Safety [2010] ACTSC 151 (2 December 2010)

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Legislation Cited (22)

Cases Cited (26)