"There is a genuine risk of innocent people being convicted of crimes they have not committed."

Liberty Victoria strongly opposes the Victorian Government’s recently announced reforms to the law of tendency and coincidence evidence, which it has announced will be based on a Bill before the New South Wales Parliament - the Evidence Amendment (Tendency and Coincidence) Bill 2020 (NSW).

Those reforms, if enacted, would amongst other things:

Sentencing Amendment (Emergency Worker Harm) Bill 2020

Liberty Victoria is strongly opposed to the Sentencing Amendment (Emergency Worker Harm) Bill 2020 (“The Bill”).

In light of the developing COVID-19 pandemic, Liberty Victoria supports calls from more than 370 lawyers, academics and advocates to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 in the Australian criminal justice system, especially prisons and youth detention centres (see 

Liberty Victoria joins the 119 Criminal and Legal Practitioners to call for humane decarceration during the COVID-19 pandemic. You cannot social distance in a cramped prison.

Humane decarceration during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In order to preserve human rights and further protect public health we the undersigned are calling on the Victorian Government to release the following class of prisoners:

1. Elderly or immunosuppressed prisoners;

2. Prisoners serving sentence for non-violent offending;