Your editorial ("Issues of justice in Porritt case", August 9, pg6) quotes shadow attorney-general Bill Stefaniak in criticising the sentence given to Glen Porritt, saying that sentencing in the ACT "needs to be in line with what happens i…
South Australia is about to take Australian personal freedoms backwards by a law making it a crime to get together with your mates, and declaring you guilty by association without doing anything wrong. Liz Murray explains how dangerous such laws are. Ant…
The future directions for laws and legal matters in Australia is determined in three meetings a year of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG), which also includes New Zealand.
The July 2008 meeting covered a range of important matters, incl…
If Schapelle Corby is innocent, the Australian media have become her persecutor. So writes CLA member Roger A.Smith, probably Australia’s most experienced, hands-on observer of the Indonesian legal system, in this letter to a writer on The Australian ne…
When an Indigenous girl is gang-raped, sometimes the justice system goes on trial. But what of our society and ourselves, by inattention permitting a festering inequity that breeds an inevitability of trouble. Peter Applegarth SC of Queensland Council fo…
Proposed new sexual assault law takes away a 400-year-old right to defend yourself in person in court, introduces secret trials, and is farcical in relation to some ill-thought-through provisions. It needs major review, partly because many problems it ai…
An Australian Parliamentary Committee is proposing sweeping changes to previous laissez-faire policies which expose Ausralians to the death penalty overseas, and also ignore what happens to people we extradite to other countries. Civil Liberties Australi…
Can a man clad only in boxer shorts order six police officers, who fear domestic violence may have occured, from his home? Yes, in certain circumstances, says the High Court, confirming nearly $0.5m in damages and proving that The Castle was a documentar…
A fair go and justice for all must drive the ACT courts system, not speedy through-put as the main consideration, Civil Liberties Australia says in its submission on court reform. CLA calls on the ACT Government to raise competency at the investigation,…
Read the ‘closing argument’ by US Air Force Reservist Major, David Frakt (in civilian life, a law professor), who is the military counsel for Mohammad Jawad, only 17 when detained in Afghanistan. He is charged with injuring US soldiers in a war, an act…
