Bail compliance checks in NSW – Issues Paper

Make a submission

The Commission is keen to hear the views of the community, particularly external stakeholders that have grappled with the way the legislative framework for bail monitoring has worked. We are also keen to understand if the legislative framework provides sufficient clarity about when and how bail monitoring can be conducted by police. This will help us consider police practice against the legislative framework, and whether changes to either may be needed.

The deadline for submissions is 25 July 2024.

Your submissions will assist us to form a view about those issues. Ultimately this work will culminate in a special report, under s 138 of the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission Act 2016.

How to make a submission

To make a written submission please email or write to us:

Email: engage@lecc.nsw.gov.au

Post: GPO Box 3880, Sydney NSW 2001

How we treat your personal information

We treat all personal information in submissions in accordance with the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 and LECC’s Privacy Statement. We remove email addresses, home or postal addresses and telephone numbers before publishing submissions. We will generally publish your name, your position (if relevant) and the name of your organisation (if relevant).

When making a submission to this issues paper, please tell us if you wish to make your submission anonymously.

How we will deal with submissions

We propose to publish written submissions on our website, however we do not promise to do so.

There is some material that we will not publish if it is in a submission, including:

any submission we consider is defamatory or offensive or otherwise inappropriate to publish
material that appears to be a complaint about particular police officers, or identifies particular officers, Commands or Police Districts
personal addresses, phone numbers or other personal details of the submitter.

If a submission raises issues that appear to be a complaint about police, we will handle it in the usual way we handle complaints. See: www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/complaints.

We will publish the name of the submitter, unless the submission specifically asks that the submitter’s name is kept anonymous.

If requested by a submitter, we will keep all or part of their submission confidential. The content of the submission may still inform the Commission’s subsequent report.

Unless you request for your submission to be anonymous, or request that part or all of it is confidential, we will understand that to mean you agree to it being made public.

Issues we are considering

While there are many potential issues about bail that the community and stakeholders may be interested to comment upon, this issues paper is confined to consideration of bail compliance checks.

This paper lists 8 issues for consideration. The Commission seeks written submissions on these issues.

To what extent can the doctrine of implied licence be relied upon by police officers when undertaking bail compliance checks?
Does the Bail Act 2013 proscribe police from conducting bail compliance checks when police are operating outside of s 77 and in circumstances where there is no enforcement condition?
If the court fixes an accommodation or curfew condition, is a bail enforcement condition a necessary pre-requisite to the conduct of any bail compliance checks that are undertaken outside of s 77 of the Bail Act?
How could an enforcement condition relating to an underlying curfew or accommodation condition be crafted in a manner that ensures it is not unreasonable (taking into consideration the bailed person and any other residents of the property at which the baled person resides), but remains an effective tool for checking compliance with the underlying condition?
What are the practical limitations to the effectiveness of enforcement conditions that require a bailed person to present to the front door, and how could these be resolved?
What issues should be considered in relation to other residents of the property at which a bailed person resides, and the capacity for police to ask or require them to assist in checking bail compliance?
Should the Bail Act make provision for the carrying out of bail compliance checks, in the absence of a bail enforcement condition?
How could the Bail Act be amended to make clearer the circumstances in which police can do bail compliance checks when they do not have grounds to suspect that bail conditions are being breached?