Police Minister’s so-called ‘ring of steel’ is actually giant privacy-invading mechanism, with no public, police or political-legislative safeguards, CLA VP Rajan Venkataraman says. It’s typical of a repressive approach to governing in a state which has no human rights charter to provide a modest baseline against which to measure surveillance intrusion into citizens’ lives.
Crime in on a 20-year decline, but the number of prisoners in Australia has been growing dramatically over the same period (except for during Covid-19 lockdowns). Why are taxpayers being forced to pay about $330 a day – the price of a top notch hotel stay – for each prisoner each day across Australia? Our justice system generally is no longer fit for purpose, and Productivity Commissions, both national and in Queensland, have recently tried to come to grips with the prison end of Australia’s ‘justice’ system, which CLA says is Unjust By Design.
Wrongful convictions expert Prof Dr Bob Moles has written to Members of the Tasmanian Parliament explaining why they should intervene to ensure justice for Sue Neill-Fraser, the woman convicted – in error, CLA and many liberties, rights and legal experts believe – for killing her husband Bob Chappell, on Australia Day 2009 on board a yacht moored in Sandy Bay, Hobart. The Yacht-No-Body case has riven Tasmania in two, with the state’s Establishment figures and systems fiercely resisting to acknowledge massive errors in the original trial which saw her jailed more than 12 years ago. Read What the Court Got Wrong, and How To Fix the Mess, by Dr Moles and his wife and co-author, Prof Bibi Sangha.
How The Mercury reported MLC Mike Gaffney’s Upper House revelations.[/caption]
A Member of Tasmania’s Upper House, Michael Gaffney, has used the Parliament on 31 Aug 2021 to expose massive, newly-discovered flaws in the the original (2010) and subsequent appeal cases presented by the Crown against Sue Neill-Fraser. She is in her 12th year of a 23-year sentence for allegedly murdering her husband, Bob Chappell. CLA and most independent observers believe the woman was wrongly convicted and should be freed, immediately, and acquitted. A formal criminal appeal is under way, awaiting the verdict of three judges.
Two experts, Hugh Selby and Barbara Etter, have formally asked Tasmanian Attorney-General Elise Archer to re-open the ‘in limbo’ appeal by Sue Neill-Fraser into her 2010 conviction for murdering her husband, Bob Chappell, aboard a yacht moored in Sandy Bay, Hobart, in 2009. The appeal has been heard, but a decision is awaited. The experts say police incompetence, or worse, has never been examined in the SNF case: if it was, she may well be acquitted.ACT Bar Association Vice-President Jack Pappas has defended the organisation’s support of Bernard Collaery, the Canberra barrister caught up in a political prosecution authorised by former federal Attorney-General Christian Porter. The ACT Bar called for the case against Collaery to be dropped, Pappas says, as recently as April 2021.
Was Operation Ironside illegal under Australian law? There is doubt, created by the AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw, whether the much ballyhooed Operation Ironside was carried out according to the law of the land. The first duty of our police is to obey the law, even before enforcing it. We need open and honest answers rather than confuseed bluster and PR spin, CLA says.
It has been reported that NSW police are accepting secret reports of sexual assault in a dangerous new type of vigilantism. Asked to comment verbally by the media, Civil Liberties Australia chose to put our concerns in writing. Here is our statement.
