Published
July 18, 2026Victorian bail law has been amended repeatedly in recent years, most significantly by the 2025 reforms, and commentary written even a short time ago is unreliable. What follows is the framework as it presently stands.
For most offences, the prosecution must persuade the court that the accused poses an unacceptable risk — of failing to appear, offending, interfering with witnesses, or endangering the community — before bail may be refused. Community safety is now the paramount consideration in that assessment.
For offences listed in the schedules to the Bail Act 1977, the onus reverses. An accused charged with a Schedule 2 offence must show a compelling reason justifying bail; an accused charged with a Schedule 1 offence must establish exceptional circumstances. The 2025 amendments expanded both schedules considerably — armed robbery, aggravated burglary, home invasion, and carjacking were elevated to Schedule 1, and offences involving controlled weapons and serious vehicle offending were added to Schedule 2 — and reintroduced uplift provisions under which further alleged offending on bail moves the accused into a stricter test. Breaching a bail condition is again a criminal offence in its own right.
Two practical consequences follow. The first is that the reverse-onus tests are evidentiary, not rhetorical. Exceptional circumstances and compelling reason are established with material — confirmed accommodation, employment, treatment, supervision, sureties — assembled and verified before the application is made. An application run on assertion fails, and a failed application makes the next one harder: a further application generally requires new facts or circumstances.
The second is that the first application matters most and is often run too early. There is a strong instinct, understandable in custody, to apply immediately. But an application made before the material is ready spends the best opportunity on the worst version of the case. The judgment about when to apply is as important as the application itself.
The firm conducts bail applications in the Magistrates’ Court, County Court, and Supreme Court of Victoria, and treats them with the urgency custody demands — which includes the discipline of preparing them properly.
