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13 Queensland U. Tech. L.J. 211 (1997)
The Dietrich Dilemma

handle is hein.journals/qutljrnl13 and id is 225 raw text is: The Dietrich Dilemma Sally Kift* 1. Introduction Two years after the decision in Dietrich v The Queen,' the High Court restated: ...the principle in Dietrich is concerned with the right to a fair trial of a party to criminal proceedings.' This avowal encapsulates the touchstone on which the promise of Dietrich both is founded and has floundered. In Dietrich, the High Court had regard to the grow- ing body of international human rights law as a legitimate influence in developing the common law right not to be tried unfairly in the absence of legal representation, yet decisions since Dietrich have indicated that the scope of the Australian right to fair trial in this aspect is likely to be narrower than that recognised under the Inter- national Covenants or the Constitutional right recognised in the United States and Canada or under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.3 Though declining to specify even the minimum content of a fair trial, civil or criminal, the High Court held that only exceptionally will a trial for a serious criminal offence be fair where the accused has been forced on unrepresented because s/he was without the financial * LLB (Hons), LLM, Lecturer in Law Queensland University of Technology. QUT LLM graduate 1997. 1 (1992) 177 CLR 292. 2 New South Wales v Canellis (1994) 181 CLR 309 at 328. 3 See Universal Declaration of Human Rights Art 10 re fair hearing, Art 11 re guarantees necessary for defence; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Art 14(3)(d); European Conven- tion for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Art 6(3)(c); Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Art 10(b) read with Arts 7 and 11(d); Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution; New Zealand Bill of Right Act 1990 ss 23 and 24; American Convention on Human Rights Art 8(2)(d) and 8(2)(e); Convention on the Rights of the Child Art 40(b)(ii). See also D Harris 'The Rights to a Fair Trial in Criminal Proceedings as a Human Right' (1967) 16 Interna- tional and Comparative Law Quarterly 352. 211

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