The Australian Federal criminal justice system is a complex meshing of various Federal statutes, the effects of the Australian Constitution, Federal and state investigative bodies, prosecutorial bodies and courts and state prisons. It is not always obvious what law regulates the elements of a criminal offence, its investigation, the right to silence or its abrogation, trial procedure, extradition and so on. This new text successfully takes on the difficult task of drawing together this lacework of legal threads and presenting them in a studied and practical manner. The text adopts a structure that is accessible to experienced practitioners and strangers to the Commonwealth criminal law. The author is a member of the NSW Bar who practises in the Commonwealth criminal field in both prosecution and defence roles. Equally, the text deals with its subject matter in a balanced and factual way. Overall, the text will provide great assistance to lawyers practising in criminal law. It will also be an excellent resource for those encountering the Commonwealth criminal system for the first time as practitioners or students.
The author has embarked on an ambitious task in writing this text. He has succeeded in producing a text of high quality that I think is a valuable addition to any criminal law practice. Read full review. - Tony Di Francesco, Bar News, NSW Bar Association, Winter 2015.