LLB130: Criminal Law & Procedures- Report Writing Assignment

Internal Code: MAS1351

Report Writing Assignment:

Question: 1. In R v Parker (1963) 111 CLR 610, Sir Owen Dixon, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, said of the House of Lords’ decision in Director of Public Prosecutions v Smith [1961] AC 290: ‘There are propositions laid down in the judgment [in Smith’s case] which I believe to be misconceived and wrong. They are fundamental and they are propositions which I could never bring myself to accept... I think Smith's case should not be used as authority in Australia at all. I am authorised by all the other members of the High Court to say that they share [these] views’. What ‘fundamental propositions’ did the House of Lords lay down in Smith’s case? Was Sir Owen Dixon CJ right to describe them as ‘misconceived and wrong’? Are the propositions in question still valid in England today? If not, how were they abrogated?   2. In R v Patel (2012) 247 CLR 531, a case of manslaughter by gross negligence, the High Court of Australia declared: ‘The test applied to conduct which is alleged to amount to gross or criminal negligence in the context of the crime of manslaughter ... is an objective one.... The objective standard of conduct set by the law in a case such as the present is that of a reasonably competent surgeon’. Explain what the High Court meant by ‘objective test’ and ‘objective standard’. In which areas of Western Australian criminal law, other than gross negligence manslaughter, does an objective test or standard apply today? In applying that test or standard in those other areas, must the court necessarily ignore the personal characteristics of the accused (eg, age, ethnicity and mental capacity)?