Guaranteeing Basic Legal Rights in the Constitution
by John Pyke, Queensland candidate for the
Constitutional Convention
The present s.80 has a mixture of (i) the meaningless guarantee of trial by
jury in a trial on indictment (which is the procedure where the accused is
committed for trial by a jury), and (ii) procedural provisions as to the place
of trial of Commonwealth offences. I propose to leave the procedural matters
in s.80 (dots indicate where the jury trial references have been taken out),
and to create a short new Chapter to guarantee the right of fair trial, trial by jury for
significant offences, and access to the text of sources of law.
80. Place of trial.
The trial... of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth... shall be
held in the State where the offence was committed, but if the offence was not
committed within any State the trial shall be held at such place or places as
the Parliament prescribes.
CHAPTER IIIA
BASIC LEGAL RIGHTS
80A. Due process and trial by jury.
No law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory is valid to the extent that
it deprives any person of
(i) the right not to be found guilty of, or in any way subjected to penalty
for, any offence without a fair trial, or
(ii) the right to trial by jury when accused of any offence for which the
maximum penalty is more than twelve months' imprisonment.
80B. Right of access to legal information.
The text of sources of law (including legislation, delegated legislation and
judicial decisions) is not the subject of copyright, and governments have a
duty to make such texts available to the public, but their publication may be
made subject to reasonable regulation to ensure that only accurate copies are
published.
Back to: Constitutional Alterations for
a Real Republic
Written by John Pyke, 5
November 1997