New laws ending the ‘right to silence’ when being questioned by police run the risk of causing the miscarriage of justice, the state’s former top prosecutor Nicholas Cowdery QC has told a UNSW public lecture.
The NSW Parliament's recent criminal justice reforms diminish human rights, add to the complexity of criminal justice and increase the risk of wrongful conviction, argue Gary Edmond and David Hamer.
Restricting the right to silence has a very expensive corollary: the NSW government would have to fund free access to legal advice and organise duty solicitors to be on hand in police stations, writes David Dixon.
