Barbaro amendment has been passed

In February, 2014, the High Court ruled in Barbaro & Zirilli v the Queen [2014] HCA 2 that prosecutors were not permitted to make submissions on sentence in relation to the range of penalty properly available to sentencing Courts.

This was contrary to the long established practice in Queensland Courts. On 19 April, 2016  the Queensland government passed legislative amendments to restore the ability of prosecutors to make submissions on applicable sentence ranges at sentence. Crown Law will be addressing the effect of this amendment and the lessons learned about the sentencing process following Barbaro in a topic at the up-coming Crown Law Legal Conference on 20 July, 2016.