Summary Offences (Interviewing Vulnerable Witnesses) Amendment Bill 2017 (SA)

The South Australian Government has introduced amendments to the Summary Offences Act 1953 that would see the taking of video evidence of vulnerable witnesses permitted for all offences. The Summary Offences (Interviewing Vulnerable Witnesses) Amendment Bill 2017, currently before Parliament, would see the legislative correction of a potential gap in the Statutes Amendment (Vulnerable Witnesses) Act 2015 arising from a recent Supreme Court decision that saw the admissibility of a video recording of a vulnerable person only for a ‘serious offence against the person.’

Background

The Statutes Amendment (Vulnerable Witnesses) Act 2015 came into force on 1 July 2016 and amended the principal act to require that an account of a vulnerable party for a ‘serious offence against the person’ to be taken by a specially trained investigator in the form of a video interview. Under the amendment, the video will be explicitly admissible under the court’s discretion at trial in lieu of examination in chief. However, the amendment only specifically catered for ‘serious offence against the person’ and did not provide for any other offences.

Current Bill

The proposed amendment to section 74EC will broaden the current restriction to ‘serious offence against the person’ to allow a court to admit video evidence between a vulnerable person and a prescribed interviewer in relation to the investigation of any other offence. The Bill will take effect retrospectively so as to encompass any video recording made between the 1 July 2016 and the assent of the current Bill. Deputy Premier, John Rau, emphasised that the amendments will not subtract from the accused’s right to a fair trial. He explained that the admissibility of video evidence is at the judge’s discretion. 

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Summary Offences (Interviewing Vulnerable Witnesses) Amendment Bill 2017, Bill, Explanatory Material and Second Reading Speech as published on LawOne