ALRC tells government
how to do
Commissions
on the cheap
Australia looks likely to get a new form of major investigation - the Official Inquiry - as a second tier to the existing Royal Commission system, after the Australian Law Reform Commission table its report No 111, 'Making Inquiries'. The ALRC has made other recommendations that would make the inquiry process more open, and oblige the government to respond in a timely manner to inquiry recommendations.
Assault on
liberties
long, laboured
Round-robins of 'tough on crime' legislation go from state to state, nation to nation. Here, noted Manchester QC Mark George analyses the cumulative effect of years of repressive laws in the UK, which have whittled away the traditional protections of the 'rule of law'. Other Observer newspaper commentators take the debate further.
Read more »...SA's 'stand-out' AG strikes again
Updated: Michael Atkinson, the South Australian Attorney General noted for quaint ways, is at it again: a new law means you must attach your name/details to any letter or blog comment once the March 2010 SA election is formally called, which is expected imminently. The SA pollies can accept anonymous donations...but citizens can't make anonymous comments on the pollies' performance.
Atkinson backflip: when's the election?
Wed 3 Feb 2010 A-G Atkinson did a backflip
Prisons in Victoria, 2010
How well are Australia's prisons serving the community? One major Royal Commission recommendation was that the community constantly keep watch on what is happening in prisons. Here, CLA's Keith McEwan does just that, for the Victorian prison system.
Radical stop-and-search powers
ruled invalid by EU court
Updated:- In a surprise decision, the EU Court of Human Rights has overturned a House of Lords judgement and told Britain that its police stop-and-search powers are invalid. The government must now reframe the laws to abide by human rights.
State abuses power by assets freeze
CLA is campaigning against the draconian provisions of draft legislation on 'Serious and Organised Crime', which is now (Feb 2010) being considered by federal parliament. Here is proof, from WA, of how the state can abuse similar legislation, and inflict on a businessman and his family eight years of undeserved hell. Imagine if this happened to you.
Scientists question DNA accuracy
A trans-Atlantic group of 41 scientists want access to the 7 million DNA records on the US national database to test whether DNA matching statistics are accurate, or overstated. There are indications that probability numbers need re-thinking, the scientists say, based partly on research from Australia.
Read more »...CLA's stance on taking DNA from juveniles criticised
CLA's CEO Bill Rowlings was quoted in Brisbane's Sunday Mail in January 2010 decrying the fact that Qld Police are taking DNA swabs from 10 to 16-year-olds and filing them away on a criminal database. A reader has taken him to task; read her comment and here's his response.
California slashes prison spending
Prison spending and the prison population both are going through the roof, in the USA, UK and Australia. In California, America's almost bankrupt state, Governor Arnie Schwarzenegger is biting the bullet and slashing spending on prisons to allocate more funds to universities. When will Australian politicians wake up, and do something similar?
'Police not at fault over car chase death'
I write to you regarding the recent tragic loss of the life of a 2yo girl during a police pursuit in Sydney. Once again the civil libertarians blame the police for this tragedy instead of the perpetrators (the armed robbers).
It is about time the do-gooders in Australia ceased to defend the criminals in this country and treated them with the level of respect they deserve (NONE). No doubt the scum involved in this robbery had previous form and the actions of organisations like yours (advocates for shorter sentences, home detention, early parole, etc) are responsible through your interfering for the fact criminals are now given too many chances.
What causes overcrowding?
Editor, The West Australian: Sir, I respond to your report 'Overcrowding to blame for jail assaults' TWA 16 Dec 09 p18.
It goes without saying that overcrowded prisons where prisoners are forced to share a cell with other prisoners will always be open to abuse within the jail system, where normally a 1-man cell becomes a 2 or 3 man cell.
I suggest that a reason for the overcrowding in our jails, or a major contributing factor over the past 20 years, is that the laws allowing convictions for serious assault have changed, where the complainant, generally women, doesn't have to have corroborating evidence to secure a conviction supposedly beyond reasonable doubt.
FOI, open access rules need reversing
Information within government is the people's information. The starting point for access rights and openness must be that the people are entitled to see and hear everything, with very limited exclusions. Currently, the reverse is true, certainly in WA, says Dr Johan Lidberg.
Letter to Police Commissioner who
now knows why civil liberties matter
Tasmanian Police Commisioner Jack Johnston, recently cleared by the High Court of a serious charge, for 16 months suffered the ignominy of being strip searched, swabbed for DNA, the subject of possible listening devices and liable for phone-tapping. CLA has written to congatulate him for speaking up against police excesses, now he understands first-hand why civil liberties matter.
Crime plummets, but L+O pollies
still bray for costly harsher laws
A new research paper from the Australian Institute of Criminology highlights how crime in Australia and in western nations is down over the past decade, and declining.
The paper indicates how wrong and self-servingly tendentious are the caterwauling outbursts from politicians, usually shortly before an election, over individual crimes.
This Bill should not pass
The Rudd Government is about to pass laws which are '...diluting basic criminal justice principles' and 'jeopardis(ing) the most fundamental individual rights', according to the Opposition, which still plans to vote for the unconscionable legislation. It is time for sensible people on both sides, but particularly the Coalition, to say enough is enough: the 'continual expansion of powers available to law enforcement agencies' has gone too far. This Bill should not pass.
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