Expanding our guidelines to strengthen accountability and fairness in the criminal justice system

We are expanding our summary crime funding guideline to ensure more people have support to plead not guilty when there is not enough evidence to prove the charges against them.

The expanded not guilty guideline is in effect from 1 April 2024.

‘Through our practice experience across Victoria we see the impact of systemic racism, misidentification in family violence and concerning police practices,’ said Summary Crime and Therapeutic Justice Director Kate Bundrock.

‘This evidence-based change will make an important contribution to a fairer and more accountable justice system, particularly for people who are impacted by systemic injustice.’

The guideline change expands the groups who can be represented to contest charges.

It is designed to provide more support to:

• First Nations people
• women and people who identify as LGBTIQ+ or gender diverse and are misidentified as the predominant aggressor in family violence
• people who have been charged following an unjustified, disproportionate or unreasonable use of power by a person in a special position of authority, like a police officer.

The guideline will continue to apply to all people who are facing imprisonment and have good reasons to contest the charges against them.

‘We know that pleading not guilty can be an almost impossible task for someone who is representing themselves without a good knowledge of evidence law and criminal procedure,’ said Kate.

‘There is substantial evidence to show that when someone is unrepresented they face significant pressure to plead guilty, even when the charges can’t be proven.

'By supporting more people to contest unfair charges, we aim to strengthen and improve accountability and oversight of the whole criminal justice system,’ said Kate.

Information for practitioners

We understand that some lawyers might require additional support to understand and apply the guideline, and to contest charges on the basis of unreasonable police practices or racial profiling.

The guideline and additional resources and worksheets are available in the Handbook for lawyers.

A new directory of resources is available on LawHub for in-house staff and practitioners on our summary crime panel.

Future changes to family violence intervention order guidelines

The expanded not guilty guideline will be complemented by changes to our guidelines for family violence intervention orders (FVIO) in June 2024.

Those changes will expand the legal assistance sector’s capacity to provider earlier assistance to applicants in FVIO proceedings who are priority clients.

They will also strengthen our ability to support women and LGBTIQ+ clients who are disproportionately misidentified by police as the predominant aggressor in a family violence matter.

We will provide further information about the FVIO guideline changes from April.

More information

If you are facing criminal charges in Victoria you can ask for Help Before Court.