Case Explained:This article breaks down the legal background, charges, and implications of Case Explained: Long-held warnings from legal groups come to fruiti… – Legal Perspective
Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains names and images of Aboriginal people who have died.
Reports Victoria’s courts are leaving a growing number of criminal cases unresolved as magistrates deal with the influx of bail hearings under the state’s stricter laws appear to confirm long-standing warnings from Indigenous and legal organisations about the dangers posed by the “punitive” reforms.
Data from Court Services Victoria (CSV) shows the Victorian Magistrates’ Court finalised 92 per cent of criminal cases in 2024-25, falling short of its 100 per cent benchmark. The shortfall was attributed to magistrates spending increased time dealing with bail applications.
“Recent legislative reforms have increased the number of bail applications; court time has been diverted from case finalisations to prioritise bail matters,” CSV’s annual report states.
The Victorian Government introduced a series of controversial bail amendments in 2024 and 2025 amid intense political pressure over rising crime rates. At the time, the government acknowledged the changes would lead to more people being incarcerated — many on remand — drawing strong criticism from legal and human rights groups.
Data from the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria’s annual report shows the number of bail application orders decided by a magistrate increased by 10.5 per cent in 2024-25.
Lawyers have repeatedly raised concerns about the growing number of people held in custody while waiting for bail hearings. National Indigenous Times is aware of cases in which individuals were unable to appear in court because there was insufficient space in prison transport vehicles.
In other instances, overcrowded court holding cells have prevented people on remand from being brought before a judge. Corrections staff have been forced to determine which detainees are transported from police stations and remand centres to appear in court.
The Allan Government has faced mounting pressure from police and sections of the media to respond to crime levels now at their highest in a decade. Recent figures show children aged 17 and under account for 60 per cent of robberies and almost half of aggravated burglaries, prompting the government to introduce life sentences for children aged 14 and over for several serious offences.
While National Indigenous Times understands some members of the Victorian Cabinet opposed elements of the bail reforms during their development last year — warning of their impact on vulnerable communities and the need for safeguards — others argued the changes were necessary to deflect political attacks over crime.
Advocates have long argued bail “saves lives” and new, “punitive” laws contradict recommendations from coroners, royal commissions, and the Closing the Gap agreement.
“It is blatantly obvious to us that dangerous legislative reform that imposes near impossible bail tests to overcome is leaving more criminal cases unresolved, having an increased pressure on the Courts, and driving up costs,” Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service CEO Nerita Waight told National Indigenous Times.
“Granting bail saves lives.”
Ms Waight said the outcome from the new laws has been vulnerable people spending longer periods in police cells or prison custody — a result she notes, “we predicted would have harmful consequences on the wellbeing of our community”.
There remains a “severe lack in essential safeguards” to protect the lives of First Nations people, Ms Waight added, noting there are “proven links between harsh bail laws and increasing Aboriginal deaths in custody”.
One of the most high-profile examples was the 2020 death in custody of Veronica Nelson. The Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman died in a “vomit-ridden” cell from a rare gastrointestinal condition after being arrested for alleged shoplifting and denied bail.
Despite Victoria’s former chief commissioner of police acknowledging the bail laws at the time directly contributed to Ms Nelson’s death, Premier Allan last year described the post-Nelson reforms introduced by former premier Daniel Andrews as “wrong” when announcing their rollback.
The replacement regime was labelled by the government as the “toughest bail laws in Australia”. In response, Ms Nelson’s mother, Aunty Donna Nelson, said the government were “trampling on Veronica’s grave”.
“What happened to my daughter should never have happened,” she said last year. “And now, this government is giving police and courts even more power to lock up our people, knowing that our people will continue to die in custody.”
In August, a second tranche of bail reforms was described by advocates as a disaster waiting to happen which would “inevitably result in more Aboriginal deaths in custody”.
An inquest into Ms Nelson’s death heard the then-bail laws described by Coroner Simon McGregor as an “unmitigated disaster”, finding they discriminated against Aboriginal people, were incompatible with Victoria’s Human Rights Charter, and required urgent reform.
Data showed they had driven a sharp increase in the number of Indigenous people and women held on remand.
“Victoria’s regressive and discriminatory bail laws are already driving up the number of people in prison and condemning generations of children and adults to the trauma of pre-trial detention,” Maggie Munn, the First Nations Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, said in July.
Although incarceration as a last resort was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, criticism of Victoria’s new laws has not been echoed at the federal level, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese publicly backing Premier Jacinta Allan’s reforms.
VALS, along with numerous legal organisations, has long argued “punitive” laws overwhelm Aboriginal community-controlled legal services — already operating on small budgets — as well as punishing some of the state’s most vulnerable.
Ms Waight says the bail system in Victoria has always disproportionately impacted First Nations people, resulting in a “dramatic increase in the number of people in prison who have not been sentenced”.
“VALS has been relentless in their warnings to the government that dangerous changes to the bail laws would result in mass pre-trial incarceration of our children and adults,” she said.
“These new laws, which the government boast about ‘working’, are pushing people into prison who should not be there and risking their lives in the process.”