FINALISED DEFENDANTS
Finalised defendants include persons charged with Commonwealth criminal offences for each court level as well as organisations charged with Commonwealth criminal offences for the Higher and Magistrates' Courts. A federal defendant is a finalised defendant who has been charged with at least one offence against Commonwealth legislation, irrespective of whether they have also been charged with any offences under state/territory legislation.
The federal defendants collection comprises a subset of all finalised defendants. However, as federal defendants may also be charged with state offences, the difference between all finalised defendants and finalised federal defendants does not equal the state defendants.
Defendants are counted for each case they have finalised during the reference period, irrespective of whether multiple cases are finalised on the same day at the same hearing. This counting rule differs to that applied in Criminal Courts, Australia (cat. no. 4513.0) (see Explanatory Notes paragraphs 28-29) and as such, the information presented in the two publications is not directly comparable. The statistics are based on data extracted from administrative records held by the state and territory agencies responsible for courts administration.
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