QLS Public Hearings: 11 February 2019
Published in
2 min readFeb 13, 2019
On 11 February 2019, QLS appeared before the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee at two public hearings:
Civil Liability and Other Legislation Amendment Bill and Civil Liability (Institutional Child Abuse) Amendment Bill 2018
QLS President Bill Potts, Chair of the Not for Profit Law Committee, Andrew Lind and member of the Accident Compensation Tort Law Committee, Trent Johnson appeared on the Civil Liability (Institutional Child Abuse) Amendment Bill 2018 and Civil Liability and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018.
The key submissions raised were:
- Concerns about reversing the onus of proof, which would undermine a fundamental tenet of our legal system. QLS considers other measures would better achieve the policy intent and preserve a fair and balanced system;
- Clarifications that are required in the draft bills to ensure that survivors can identify a proper defendant and that unincorporated bodies have a legal personality (may be sued); and
- The potential impact of the legislation on assets held on trust for a different or specific charitable purpose and our view that the amendments should reflect the intent and scope of the Royal Commission’s recommendations.
- Civil Liability and Other Legislation Amendment Bill QLS submission here
- Civil Liability (Institutional Child Abuse) Amendment Bill 2018 QLS submission here
Justice Legislation (Links to Terrorist Activity) Amendment Bill 2018
President Bill Potts, member of the Criminal Law Committee, Ken Mackenzie and Policy Solicitor, Deborah Kim appeared on the Justice Legislation (Links to Terrorist Activity) Amendment Bill 2018.
The main concerns raised in the QLS submission were:
- Reversal of the statutory presumption of bail for any adult, child or young person previously convicted of a terrorism offence or who are, or have been, subject to a control order under the Commonwealth Criminal Code;
- Presumption against an order for parole being made by the Parole Board Queensland for persons who have demonstrated support for, or links to, terrorism activity unless there are exceptional circumstances; and
- Presumption against the release of children and young people from detention to supervised release orders after serving 70% of the period of detention, unless a sentencing court makes an order for earlier release after serving between 50% and 70% of the detention period.
