Electronic monitoring should be used in the ACT to monitor alleged and proved domestic violence offenders, a parliamentary inquiry has recommended.
The inquiry has also urged the ACT government to review use of bail conditions for people charged with domestic and family violence.
The territory's Bail Act should also be overhauled to ensure a person's cultural background and disability are considered when making bail decisions as this would align the act with the territory's human rights principles.
The Assembly's justice and community safety committee has released a report following their inquiry into the administration of bail in the territory. The committee made 17 recommendations.
The recommendations including ordering a government review of the type and use of bail conditions for people charged with family and domestic violence offences. The inquiry report said an understanding was needed into why and how bail breaches occur.
Peter Cain, the committee chair and a Liberal member, said in a dissenting report he wanted the government to legislate to include violent offences in a family or domestic environment in the schedule of offences where there is a presumption against bail.
The tripartisan committee did agree on the use of electronic monitoring for alleged and proved domestic violence offenders.
The ACT government is undertaking a feasibility study into electronic monitoring but the study has recently been extended. The territory has assessed the technology twice before and is the only jurisdiction in Australia that does not use it.
"The committee would like to see the use of electronic monitoring as part of bail conditions, where it is deemed appropriate," the committee's report said.
"The committee considers that electronic monitoring as part of bail provides an opportunity to keep our communities safer, especially in cases where there is a significant risk of harm, such as in domestic and family violence offences."
The committee said it also provided a less restrictive alternative to detention and would allow people who would otherwise be detained to be released.
The committee highlighted a concern about an incompatibility between the Bail Act and the Human Rights Act around the presumption against bail for some offences. The committee said the ACT government needed to clarify the legal standing of the incompatibility.
It was also recommended the government modernise the Bail Act to include a hierarchy of objectives for the bail system, align with the Human Rights Act and explicitly require bail decisions consider a person's circumstances.
"The committee is of the belief that requiring consideration to be given to a person's Aboriginality, or a person's disability, when making bail decisions would further align the Bail Act with human rights principles and assist decision makers to make informed and fair assessments," the report said.
"Acknowledging these circumstances avoids imposing a one-size-fits-all approach that may not be suitable or effective for all defendants."
The committee also recommended the ACT work with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community to co-design a bail support program for young Indigenous Australians and to introduce an early intervention program for young people who are at risk of breaching bail.
The government should also consider putting in place arrangements to allow the Magistrates Court to permanently sit on Sundays for the purposes of bail.
Breaches of bail in the ACT hit a three-year high, the latest police data has shown.
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