Abstract
In a number of Australian jurisdictions the approach to the determination of fitness to plead to summary offences is very unclear. The Queensland Court of Appeal has discussed the issue that in Queensland there is no general legislation that deals with deciding if a person charged with a summary offence is fit to plead. This article reports on a study that was conducted to examine legal practitioners' experiences with the issue of fitness to plead to summary offences in Queensland. This article examines the fitness to plead to summary offences literature, presents and discusses some of the key findings from the study and offers suggestions for law reform. The themes examined in this article are legal practitioners' experiences and opinions on the legislative gap, what participants believe are the effects and consequences of not having legislation in this area and participants' recommendations for law reform. This research has relevance beyond Queensland as it is highly likely that this is an issue in other Australian jurisdictions.
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