THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

FACULTY OF LAW

EXAMINATION FOR

CRIMINAL LIABILITY

NOVEMBER 1995

THIS IS AN OPEN BOOK EXAMINATION.

TIME ALLOWED: 2 HOURS

plus 15 minutes Reading Time

STUDENTS SHOULD ANSWER ANY THREE QUESTIONS.

1. The Government of Utopia is drafting a Model Criminal Code and seeks your advice on the provisions relating to the defences of compulsion. Advise the Government whether it should include in the Code defences of duress and/or necessity. Include in your advice a statement of the scope and limits of any such defences, giving reasons of principle or policy in all cases for your recommendations.

2. "What with victims jumping out of windows, or doctors treating them incompetently, assaults which should just be assaults, are ending up as murders."

Discuss the concept of causation in homicide.

3. "Self-defence is a common sense notion which juries can understand without reference to legal tests or expert evidence."

Discuss.

4. "The variety of psychiatric opinion with which the jury were confronted strongly suggests that the operation of s 23A of the Crimes Act [NSW] depends upon concepts which medical experts find at least ambiguous and, perhaps, unscientific. ... [s 23A] was intended to ameliorate the effects of the M'Naghten Rules on insanity, which are themselves expressed in terms with which many psychiatrists are uncomfortable."

per Gleeson CJ in Chayna (1993) 66 A Crim R 178 at 189.

Discuss.

P.T.O.

2.

5. "[T]he law's concession seemed to be to the frailty of those whose blood was apt to boil, rather than those whose blood simmered, perhaps over a long period, and in circumstances at least as worthy of compassion."

per Gleeson CJ in Chhay (1994) 72 A Crim R 1 at 11.

To what extent have legislative and judicial initiatives advanced the defence of provocation?

6. "A person who voluntarily consumes alcohol or other drugs and commits a 'dangerous offence' is a danger to the community at large."

Does the law relating to the defence of intoxication recognise the validity, or otherwise, of this statement?

7. The New South Wales Parliamentary Counsel's Office is contemplating a re-draft of the definition of murder under s 18 (1) (a) of the Crimes Act. It asks you for your opinion of the definition: what elements would you include, and why?

(Note that you are not required to actually re-draft the section.)

8. "The limitations of the existing law relating to corporate criminal liability are increasingly recognised, but the challenge of overcoming those limitations largely remains."

Discuss.