Can a DVO be dropped in QLD and who decides

A DVO can sometimes be dropped in QLD, but rarely in the way people mean when they ask. The question usually comes up because the other person has said they do not want to go ahead, and you are hoping that ends it. Often it does not, because the application may not be theirs to end.

Four different situations get talked about as though they are one thing. They work differently, so start by working out which one you are in.

If the other person applied and no order has been made yet

This is the situation closest to what people are imagining. The person seeking protection brought the application themselves, and now they want to stop.

An applicant can ask a court to end their own application. What they cannot do is switch it off by telling you they have changed their mind, or by not turning up. It goes back before a magistrate, and it is dealt with in court.

In practice their change of heart matters, and it may well be decisive, but it does not take effect by itself. Until a court has dealt with it, the application is still live and so is your court date, so you need to turn up.

If police applied, their view is what drives it

This situation is very common and it catches a lot of people out. Police can apply for a protection order on someone's behalf, and Legal Aid Queensland is explicit that they can do it even if that person does not want them to. Once police are running the application, it is theirs. The person being protected becomes a witness in it rather than the person in charge of it.

That means the sentence people most want to hear, that she said she would drop it, does not do the work they need it to do. Even if she sincerely wants to, it may make no difference at all to whether police press on.

If police are the applicant, whether the application continues is a matter to take up with police and with the court. Trying to have it with the other person can create a second problem, which is dealt with below.

If an order has already been made

Once an order exists, the route is an application to change or end it, and that is a formal application to a court on a form.

Queensland Courts states that the aggrieved, the respondent, the applicant and a named person can all apply, and that there is no cost to apply. Queensland Government material describes the test as the court only varying the order if it considers the safety, protection or wellbeing of the aggrieved, or anyone named on the order, will not be adversely affected by the change, which is a different question from whether the two of you are now getting along.

A magistrate may also ask whether anyone pressured the applicant to bring it. Where the protected person is the one asking for an order to be softened or ended, a court will want to be satisfied the request is their own. Our page on varying or revoking a domestic violence order sets out how those applications work.

If you have been charged with breaching an order

This works differently again and is the least flexible of the four situations. A breach is a criminal charge. Police prosecutors run it, and the protected person is a witness in the prosecution rather than the owner of it, so it is not theirs to withdraw.

Their attitude can matter to how the prosecution is conducted and to what a court is told at sentence. It does not put you back where you started. Our article on breaching a domestic violence order goes through what police have to prove and where these charges come from.

Do not contact the other person about it

While you are hoping the matter gets dropped, do not contact them about it. If there is a no contact condition on a temporary order or a final order, ringing to ask them to withdraw it is a breach of the order, and it is a breach whether or not they were happy to hear from you. The order binds you and not them, and their agreement makes no difference to your position.

That is the single most common way a person who was going to be fine ends up with a criminal charge, usually without any malice, from one phone call made while trying to sort things out.

The same goes for asking a friend or a family member to pass on a message. Getting someone else to do what you cannot do yourself is generally covered by the standard conditions on an order.

What helps while the matter is running

Turn up to every date, including the ones you think will be adjourned.

Get the material, which shows what is alleged in the application, who applied and what conditions are being sought. Those facts determine your options far more than anything the other person has said to you.

Focus on the conditions rather than the existence of the order. If the main problem is an ouster condition or a restriction that stops you working, that is a negotiation worth having, and it is a more realistic one than trying to make the whole thing disappear.

Take the timing seriously as well. An application that is going to be resolved by agreement still has to be put before a court properly, and doing that at the last minute in a corridor rarely goes well.

If you have a date at Cairns Magistrates Court and you have been told it is being dropped

Being told an application is going away does not mean it has gone, and relying on that has consequences. People stop preparing, miss a date and end up with an order made in their absence.

We act for respondents in domestic and family violence matters in Cairns and across Far North Queensland. Working out who is driving the application, and what your options are, is the first thing to settle before your court date.

If a domestic violence order matter in Cairns is affecting you and you have been told it is being dropped, speak with us before you rely on that.