The ACT government will introduce new laws on Thursday to fix anomalies preventing the successful prosecution of historic child sex offenders, drawing praise from victim support workers.
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Efforts to prosecute criminals who committed sexual crimes against certain children have been frustrated by loopholes accidentally introduced to ACT criminal law in 1951 and 1976.
Those changes required female child sex victims, aged 14 and 15 between 1951 and 1985, and male victims between 1976 and 1985, to report crimes within 12 months of their occurrence. Those statutes of limitation have prevented victims - who are often too traumatised, ashamed, or scared of their offenders to come forward early - from achieving justice after a year had passed.
Earlier this month, the government said it was still ''actively looking'' at the problem, despite pledging to tackle the issue in April last year.
Victims of Crime Commissioner John Hinchey expressed fears that the legal anomalies would not be fixed before the end of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which is expected to bring more crimes to light.
The government subsequently pledged to have reforms introduced into the Legislative Assembly by the end of October.
That promise will be kept on Thursday, when Attorney-General Simon Corbell introduces the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 into the Assembly, which will repeal the 12-month limitation periods.
''It's about removing a loophole that made it very difficult to commence prosecution of certain sexual offences,'' Mr Corbell said.
''This was a bar that certainly discriminated against victims of alleged sexual offences, because often victims would take many, many years before even coming to grips with the terrible act that had been committed on them,'' he said.
He said he was confident the reforms would be made before the end of the royal commission.
Mr Hinchey, who had agitated for change in his latest annual report, welcomed the good news and said it would please many victims in the ACT.
''They will be pleased to see this come through,'' Mr Hinchey said.
''I've been dealing with two clients of Victim Support ACT that will be very pleased to see this news break,'' he said.
Mr Hinchey said it was ''unfortunate'' that it took a court case to bring the problems to light.
That case, heard early last year, involved a father who confessed to sexually abusing his son, but escaped prosecution because the offence was reported after the statute of limitation period.
It is unlikely prosecutors will be able to pursue that man again. ''It's too late for some,'' Mr Hinchey said.
''It's certainly too late for the gentleman who had admissions, and wasn't able to see the case against his accused proceed to fruition,'' he said.
''It will be bittersweet news for him.''
The bill will also include significant changes to other areas of criminal law.
Practitioners who subject suspects to intimate forensic procedures will no longer need to be the same sex as the accused. The suspect will still need to give their consent before the procedure can be conducted by a member of the opposite sex.
In other legislative changes, police officers will now be able to issue on-the-spot fines for those caught possessing 50 grams of cannabis, an increase from the current limit of 25 grams.
Officers will also be able to give criminal infringement notices to 16 and 17-year-olds without notifying their parents.
There are changes to firearm legislation, which require the owners of a rifle's receiver or a handgun's frame to be registered and hold a permit.
Amendments will also be made to the offence of receiving stolen property, designed to address problems in proving the crime.
