On Monday, the public hearings for Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence began. The public hearings follow the completion of community consultations and the close of written submissions in late May. Nearly 1000 Victorians – advocates, experts and policy stakeholders – provided submissions to the commission. They called for change in the justice, health, social […]
Author Archives: Kate Fitz-Gibbon
In the UK, men can no longer claim they were provoked by jealousy into killing their partner. Our research published recently in the Cambridge Law Journal revealed the extent to which that change, enacted in 2010, has altered the way the English courts have responded to murder motivated by sexual infidelity. The answer is not […]
The recent killing of 21-year-old Melbourne University student Joshua Hardy is another tragic story of unprovoked, alcohol-fuelled male violence in our community. It is an issue that has animated significant debate in politics and the media in recent years and has motivated the introduction of a range of criminal justice and licensing reforms nationally. […]
This article was first published on The Conversation website. The law’s response to lethal domestic violence in Australia raises complex issues. It requires a delicate balance to be struck between ensuring a just response to those who kill in response to prolonged family violence while simultaneously ensuring that those who kill an intimate partner in […]
This article was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 21 April 2014. Following last week’s resignation of Barry O’Farrell and the appointment of Mike Baird as premier, it is now time to get back to the key criminal justice issue in NSW: the prevention of alcohol-fuelled violence. In late January, under O’Farrell’s leadership, […]
This article was first published on The Age website on 27 June 2014. Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark has called time of death for the offence of defensive homicide. The government’s bill, which was introduced in Parliament on Wednesday, represents a significant step forward in ensuring just responses to lethal violence in the Victorian criminal justice […]
This article was first published on The Conversation on 26 June 2014. Victorian attorney-general Robert Clark today introduced a bill into parliament that repeals the offence of defensive homicide. The bill signifies a significant step forward in ensuring just responses to lethal violence in the state’s criminal court system. While reforming homicide law has been a long […]
On Friday, Yassir Ibrahim Mohamed Hassan was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court to a maximum term of 12 years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of nine years, for the manslaughter of his wife, Mariam Henery Yousif. Hassan’s case is a stark reminder of the injustices caused by the partial defence of provocation, which continues […]
This article was first published on The Sydney Morning Herald website on 22 October 2013. The O’Farrell government must reconsider their recommendation to retain a restricted version of the controversial partial defence of provocation. The government has released a draft exposure bill recommending reform of a partial defence that has long attracted criticism and community […]
An article published this week in the latest issue of Criminology and Criminal Justice reveals judicial and legal practitioner support for the abolition of the mandatory life sentence in the English criminal justice system. This blog post provides an overview of the research findings, access the full article here. In the English criminal courts it […]