The NSW Council for Civil Liberties helped to break the back of archaic Australian censorship laws by taking the fight to Sydney’s streets, which were then rife with police corruption. The Liberating of Lady Chatterley and Other True Stories is the tale…
Virginia Hausseger’s summary of what happens in a rape trial was accurate except when she says that the victim will be questioned about her sexual history and number of partners and that the jurors will therefore draw from that a view about her morality.…
The Speaker of the Tasmanian House of Assembly, Mr Polley, is trying to ban someone from Parliament and its precincts for six months…but it appears he doesn’t have the power to do so and, if he did have, he’s chosen the wrong premiss.
Speaker Mic…
Attorney-General Ruddock is criticising lawyers and civil libertarians who are championing the rule of law in Australia, and supporting an Immigration Minister who is denying the presumption of innocence and a police force leaking against all the rules o…
A Minister with a track record of not respecting democratically-enacted law has spat in the face of the judiciary by locking up, by his own bureaucratic decision, a man freed on bail earlier the same day by a magistrate. Zimbabwe? A Middle Eastern dictat…
CLA congratulates police for listening to the community and introducing training for all officers serving in the watchhouse. Introducing watchhouse training was they key recommendation in CLA’s submission to the ACT Watchhouse Review, run by police and t…
Reading Gwynne Dyer’s article, "Police against drug prohibition make a case" (January 9,) I am reminded of a letter I sent to a local paper 18 years ago. The letter was in support of a Victoria Police chief superintendent who had called for…
Read this rundown by Sydney Morning Herald columnist Richard Ackland on what concerns civil libertarians.
If you can’t get through to the SMH site, you can read it here.
CLA says no Australians – including AFP officers – should be obliged to give up their DNA against their will. DNA testing should be voluntary, not compulsory, and it should not be used to screen applicants for jobs.
Media Release Wed 27 Sept 06
DNA t…
CLA view that Strict liability offences need re-think
Preamble
CLA believes that issues surrounding strict and absolute liability offences are fundamentally important in creating and enforcing just and fair laws. Poorly constructed laws invoking st…