One of the oldest principles in law, not just in Australia, but around the world, is double jeopardy, but despite it being around for so long, there remains lots of confusion regarding what it means.
In the simplest terms, double jeopardy is the legal principle that means once someone has been found not guilty in court for a crime, they cannot be retried for the same offence.
One of the primary reasons it was introduced in many jurisdictions was to prevent the crown, or the state, retrying the same person repeated times in the hope that eventually they would find a jury that was prepared to convict via a guilty verdict.
The issue of someone’s human rights being overridden by a determined prosecution convinced of that person’s guilt deliberately charging them again and again with the same offence was another reason double jeopardy laws were created.