Legal News - Go To Court Lawyers Legal Articles

A Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) decision late last year has called into question the state’s laws prohibiting firearm silencers. The decision considered the Queensland Police’s refusal to grant a farmer’s request to possess a silencer in order to more safely use his firearms to control invasive species on his property. The health benefits…

The Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton has come under fire after it has come to light that 27-year-old Neil Prakash, who was stripped of his Australian citizenship last month, does not, in fact, have Fijian citizenship. Contrary to the Minister’s assertion that Prakash is a dual national, the Fijian government has today denied that…

The National Transport Commission (NTC) is currently reviewing how the Australian Road Rules deal with driver distraction. The current rules relating to driver distraction were developed in 1999 when mobile phones were mainly used for calls and text messages and in-vehicle technology was limited to television screens. The review will consider the variety of ways…

As more and more information is stored digitally, a number of cases have come before the courts where a party has argued that a digital document has a testamentary intention and should be treated as a digital will. Traditionally, a will is required to have been executed in accordance with the formalities provided for in…

On 25 July 2018, the Victorian Government announced that it would introduce the Justice Legislation Amendment (Unlawful Association and Criminal Appeals) Bill. This Bill, if passed, will abolish the right to a de novo appeal in Victoria. What is a de novo appeal? A de novo appeal is an appeal from the Magistrates’ Court to the…

The Australian government has announced it will not be signing a United Nations migration pact, which was developed during 2018. The pact invites signatory states to work towards a more humane and cooperative approach to world migration and to adopt domestic practices that address migration issues in a safe, orderly and regular way through international…

A Labor and Greens bill, which would allow parents to choose whether or not to have their baby’s sex recorded on the birth certificate, has passed the Tasmanian lower house. The bill also allows people over 16 to change the gender on their birth certificate if they make a statutory declaration and have the support…

The Tasmanian government has this month released draft legislation that would impose mandatory reporting obligations on priests. If the new law is passed, Tasmanian priests will face criminal charges and possible jail time if they fail to report child sex offences that have been disclosed to them, including under the confessional seal. Similar legislation has…

The United Nations working group on arbitrary detention has condemned Australia’s detention of three asylum seekers. The group, which reports to the UN Human Rights Council, on which Australia has a seat, has expressed concern about asylum seekers and immigrants being detained around the world, and highlighted 94 cases of arbitrary detention around the world,…

Last week the historic Gay Conviction Expungement Bill passed the West Australian parliament. People in Western Australia with historic convictions on their records for having consensual gay sex prior to its decriminalisation in 1990 will be able to have these convictions expunged. Western Australia is the last Australian jurisdiction to pass such legislation, with a…

Nick Hardy-Clements, Jordan Vincent, Daniel Shestowsky, Michelle Makela , Jack Leitner, James Stevens, Carl Patterson Finch, Sylvie Maranis, Ali Rana and Tanguy Mwilambwe attended a black-tie event at The Star Sydney on 31 August 2018 where the winners of 2018’s Australian Law Awards (ALAs) were announced. Go To Court Lawyers was shortlisted in both the New…

On 16 August 2018, the Victorian Court of Appeal significantly reduced the sentence given to Akon Guode. Ms Guode was sentenced to a total of 26 years and six months imprisonment for the murder of her two four-year-old children, the infanticide of her 18 month-old child and the attempted murder of her five-year-old child. On…

The federal government’s attempt to put in place legislated targets for the reduction of carbon emissions over the next decade in the form of the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) has been abandoned as questions about Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership take centre stage. The questions of how best the country can agree on, legislate and achieve targets for…

The Senate will on Tuesday debate a bill that if passed will allow the territories to legislate for voluntary euthanasia. The bill was introduced by David Leyonhjelm and would reverse the 1997 ban on the ACT and NT legalising euthanasia, which voided the 1995 decision by the Northern Territory parliament to legalise assisted suicide. The…

A Queensland parliamentary inquiry is investigating the problem of wage theft in Queensland. The committee will be looking at the incidence of wage theft in the state, its impact on workers, families, businesses, the community and the economy. It will consider why wage theft is occurring, which industries or occupations it is most prevalent in…

A bill of rights is a list of the fundamental rights of citizens of a country. It exists to protect the rights of individuals from being violated by the state or by other individuals. A bill of rights can be entrenched or unentrenched. An entrenched bill of rights is contained within the constitution of the…

The Queensland Coroner on Monday handed down his findings in the inquest into the 2014 death of Iranian asylum seeker Hamid Khazaei. The coroner found  that the young man’s death was preventable and that he would have survived had he received adequate medical care.  The findings indicated that the death was the result of a…

A debate is currently raging in New South Wales as to whether the state’s sexual consent laws need to be changed. The current definition of consent is contained in Section 61HA of the Crimes Act 1900. Consent is defined there as ‘free and voluntary agreement’.  The provision also specifies situations in which a person cannot…

The New South Wales government recently passed a suite of reforms to the NSW Road Transport Act. The changes are designed to make roads safer and to keep traffic laws up to date with social changes and new technology. As part of the reforms, the state government has announced that it will be implementing the use…

Go To Court Lawyers has been shortlisted in two categories in the Australian legal industry’s most prestigious awards. GTC has been named a finalist in both the Innovator of the Year Award and the NewLaw Firm of the Year Award categories of the 2018 Australian Law Awards, hosted by Lawyers Weekly. The 18th annual Australian…