POLICE MISCONDUCT

The offence of misconduct in public office provides prosecuting authorities with an ability to charge a public official with an offence that reflects the fact that the circumstances of the offending amount to a non-trivial abuse of the public trust. The cases outlined above provide examples of the types of conduct and procedural breaches that courts in Australia, England and Hong Kong have found constituted misconduct in public office. The Australian jurisprudence exemplified in Quach seems to have more clearly articulated the key elements of the offence. Whilst Australia is yet to see the range of applications to public officials that has occurred in England, recent developments indicate that the offence may occur in numerous and varied employment scenarios, including privatised state services.