Loprete v Australian Crime Commission

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT 1 The two issues raised in this matter - and in the parallel proceeding of X v Australian Crime Commission [2004] FCA 1475 - are (i) whether the Board of the Australian Crime Commission ("the ACC") had power to, and did, lawfully amend an authorisation and determination it had previously made for a special investigation by the ACC into "federally relevant criminal activity"; and (ii) whether s 30(2) of the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002 (Cth) ("the ACC Act") has abrogated the privilege against self-incrimination in relation to offences against the laws of a foreign country ("foreign offences"). 2 There are short answers to each of these questions. As to the first, the ACC had an implied power to make the amendment it did (i.e. to extend the period of the special investigation) in virtue of the provisions of s 33(3) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth). As to the second and in light of the decision of the Full Court of this Court in A v Boulton (2004) 207 ALR 342, I am bound to conclude that "the [ACC] Act abrogated any privilege against self-incrimination that the [applicant] might otherwise have had in an examination under the Act": [72]. It is immaterial whether the possible incrimination was in relation, variously, to a Commonwealth, a State, a Territory or a foreign offence. For the purposes of the ACC Act, it is the privilege itself that has been abrogated not particular possible applications of it: Barnes v Boulton [2004] FCA 1219 at [30], [37]-[41].