08.12.2014
Australian Constitution
7.10 There is no express or implied prohibition on the making of retroactive laws in the Australian Constitution. In R v Kidman (1915), the High Court found that the Commonwealth Parliament had the power to make laws with retrospective effect.[13] In that case, which concerned a retrospective criminal law, Higgins J said:
There are plenty of passages that can be cited showing the inexpediency, and the injustice, in most cases, of legislating for the past, of interfering with vested rights, and of making acts unlawful which were lawful when done; but these passages do not raise any doubt as to the power of the Legislature to pass retroactive legislation, if it sees fit. … The British Parliament, by Acts of attainder and otherwise, has made crimes of acts after the acts were committed, and men have been executed for the crimes; and—unless the contrary be provided in the Constitution—a subordinate Legislature of the British Empire has, unless the Constitution provide to the contrary, similar power to make its Statutes retroactive.[14]
7.11 The power of the Australian Parliament to create a criminal offence with retrospective application has been affirmed in a number of cases, and is discussed in Polyukhovich v Commonwealth (1991).[15] In that case, McHugh J said that ‘Kidman was correctly decided’[16] and that
numerous Commonwealth statutes, most of them civil statutes, have been enacted on the assumption that the Parliament of the Commonwealth has power to pass laws having a retrospective operation. Since Kidman, the validity of their retrospective operation has not been challenged. And I can see no distinction between the retrospective operation of a civil enactment and a criminal enactment.[17]
Principle of legality
7.12 The principle of legality provides some protection from retrospective laws.[18] When interpreting a statute, courts will presume that Parliament did not intend to create offences with retrospective application, unless this intention was made unambiguously clear.[19] For example, in Maxwell v Murphy (1957), Dixon CJ said:
the general rule of the common law is that a statute changing the law ought not, unless the intention appears with reasonable certainty, to be understood as applying to facts or events that have already occurred in such a way as to confer or impose or otherwise affect rights or liabilities which the law had defined by reference to past events.[20]
7.13 However, this presumption does not apply to procedural (as opposed to substantive) changes to the application of the law. Dixon CJ went on to say:
given rights and liabilities fixed by reference to past facts, matters or events, the law appointing or regulating the manner in which they are enforced or their enjoyment is to be secured by judicial remedy is not within the application of the presumption. Changes made in practice and procedure are applied to proceedings to enforce rights and liabilities, or for that matter to vindicate an immunity or privilege, notwithstanding that before the change in the law was made the accrual or establishment of the rights, liabilities, immunity or privilege was complete and rested on events or transactions that were otherwise past and closed.[21]
International law
7.14 There are prohibitions on retrospective criminal laws in international law. Article 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), expressing a rule of customary international law,[22] provides:
1. No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time when the criminal offence was committed. If, subsequent to the commission of the offence, provision is made by law for the imposition of the lighter penalty, the offender shall benefit thereby.
2. Nothing in this article shall prejudice the trial and punishment of any person for any act or omission which, at the time when it was committed, was criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations.
7.15 International instruments cannot be used to ‘override clear and valid provisions of Australian national law’.[23] However, where a statute is ambiguous, courts will generally favour a construction that accords with Australia’s international obligations.[24]
Bills of rights
7.16 In other countries, bills of rights or human rights statutes provide some protection from statutory encroachment. There are prohibitions on the creation of offences that apply retrospectively in the United States,[25] the United Kingdom,[26] Canada[27] and New Zealand.[28] For example, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides that any person charged with an offence has the right
not to be found guilty on account of any act or omission unless, at the time of the act or omission, it constituted an offence under Canadian or international law or was criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations.[29]
7.17 The right not to be charged with a retrospective offence is also protected in the Victorian and ACT human rights stautes.[30]
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[13]
R v Kidman (1915) 20 CLR 425.
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[14]
Earlier in that case: ‘No doubt a provision making criminal and punishable future acts would have more direct tendency to prevent such acts than a provision as to past acts ; but whatever may be the excellence of the utilitarian theory of punishment, the Federal Parliament is not bound to adopt that theory. Parliament may prefer to follow St Paul (Romans IX 4), St Thomas Aquinas, and many others, instead of Bentham and Mill’: Ibid 450.
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[15]
Polyukhovich v Commonwealth (1991) 172 CLR 501. See also Millner v Raith (1942) 66 CLR 1.
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[16]
Polyukhovich v Commonwealth (1991) 172 CLR 501, 721 [30] (McHugh J).
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[17]
Ibid 718 [23] (McHugh J).
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[18]
The principle of statutory interpretation now known as the ‘principle of legality’ is discussed more generally in Ch 1.
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[19]
See also, Polyukhovich v Commonwealth (1991) 172 CLR 501; Maxwell v Murphy (1957) 96 CLR 261, 267 (Dixon CJ); WBM v Chief Commissioner of Police [2012] VSCA 159 (30 July 2012) [67] (Warren CJ with whom Hansen JA expressed general agreement at [133]. Chief Justice Spigelman in Attorney-General of New South Wales v World Best Holdings Ltd [2005] enunciated a slightly different test for the principle of legality as it applies to the interpretation of criminal offences which have retrospective effect.
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[20]
Maxwell v Murphy (1957) 96 CLR 261, 267 (Dixon CJ). See also Rodway v The Queen (1990) 169 CLR 515, 518 ( (Mason CJ, Dawson, Toohey, Gaudron & McHugh JJ).In that case, the Justices stated, ‘the rule at common law is that a statute ought not be given a retrospective operation where to do so would affect an existing right or obligation unless the language of the statute expressly or by necessary implication requires such construction. It is said that statutes dealing with procedure are an exception to the rule and that they should be given a retrospective operation’.
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[21]
Maxwell v Murphy (1957) 96 CLR 261, 267 (Dixon CJ).
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[22]
See Polyukhovich v Commonwealth (1991) 172 CLR 501, 574 (Brennan CJ).
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[23]
Minister for Immigration v B (2004) 219 CLR 365, 425 [171] (Kirby J).
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[24]
Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Teoh (1995) 183 CLR 273, 287 (Mason CJ and Deane J). The relevance of international law is discussed more generally in Ch 1.
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[25]
United States Constitution art I § 9, 10. (‘No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed’: § 9).
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[26]
Human Rights Act 1998 (UK) ) c 42, sch 1 pt I, art 7.
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[27]
Canada Act 1982 c 11, Sch B Pt 1 (’Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’) s 11(g).
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[28]
Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZ) s 26(1).
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[29]
Canada Act 1982 c 11, Sch B Pt 1 (’Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’) s 11(g).
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[30]
Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities 2006 (Vic) s 27; Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) s 25.