NT coroner criticises mandatory sentencing, says Indigenous law should be considered

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[quote]The Northern Territory coroner has slammed the mandatory sentencing regime, saying traditional Indigenous law should be considered when handing down prison sentences.

The coroner also said he hoped to one day have a "compassionate and properly advised legislature" which would change the law.

His comments came during a brief inquest into the death of Kwementyaye Nelson, a 62-year-old prisoner who died in Alice Springs Hospital from liver and kidney failure in January 2017.

He was serving a life sentence with a 20-year non-parole period for the murder of his partner in 2002.

Nelson had hit his partner several times with a nulla nulla — a traditional hunting war club — until it broke.

He then hit her several times in the head with an axe.

Counsel assisting the coroner Kelvin Currie said in that same year he was granted bail to go receive traditional "payback" from the family of his partner.

"He attended payback and sustained a fractured skull, hearing loss, cognitive and memory impairment, fractured ribs, a fractured elbow and numerous bruises," he said.[/quote]

[quote]The system has long been criticised by the judiciary for taking away their ability to consider other factors in sentences.

"Hopefully one day a compassionate and properly advised legislature will give the discretion to the judges to take things into account like payback, so he doesn't have to serve 20 years," he said.[/quote]

[url]http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-01/nt-coroner-slams-mandatory-sentencing-scheme/9216106?sf174932949=1[/url]

That coroner should be sacked. What a fucking loon.

[Carlito]

I don't think it's too outrageous to suggest other approaches to law enforcement in the region, considering our government's paternalistic, zero-tolerance approach to systemic problems in the NT have not helped at all. It's a bit much to say he should be sacked for the comments.

[LAMB SAUCE]

I love how retarded this logic is, it's not bloody 48,000 BC anymore there is no place for that sort of barbaric behaviour, everyone involved in that "payback" should be jailed too. The sentencing is the justice.

But Jesus Christ. Traditions and ethnicity should not be judged when giving someone a sentence for a crime, they should be tried equally.