Posts Categorized: Criminal Law

NSW to Prohibit the Use of ‘Good Character’ as a Mitigating Factor in Sentencing

NSW to Prohibit the Use of ‘Good Character’ as a Mitigating Factor in Sentencing

by Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim In a move that has long been demanded by victim advocacy groups and is based upon a recommendation contained in a New South Wales Sentencing Council report of July 2025,  the state government has introduced legislation that would prohibit the use of ‘good character’ as a factor which has… Read more »

How Are Laws Made in New South Wales? 

New South Wales parliament

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim The 2025/26 summer holidays were completely different to any other in recent memory, as they commenced with the horror of the 14 December Bondi Beach massacre, and in the wake of this act of terrorism, both the federal and NSW parliaments reconvened to pass a swag of laws that… Read more »

The Public Safety Order Regime in New South Wales

Jewish Lobby

As of Wednesday, 21 January 2026, senior New South Wales police officers had issued public safety orders (PSO) to at least 12 neo-Nazis in the Greater Sydney area, ordering them to keep a wide berth from the city’s CBD and its surrounds on 26 January 2026, as their presence at a planned antiimmigration rally on… Read more »

Appeal Against Sentence for Firearm Offences Succeeds as Judge Did Not Properly Discount

Supreme courts window

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim The New South Wales police commissioner imposed a firearms prohibition order (FPO) upon Grafton man Samuel Lynch on 2 July 2020. An FPO restricts its subject from owning firearms or ammunition. But on being arrested on 26 July 2021, Lynch was found to have amassed multiple guns, guns parts… Read more »