Editor, The Age: A recently released research paper on Recidivism by Corrections Victoria reveals who returns to the 13 prisons in Victoria.
At a time when the prison population is rapidly expanding, with 4183 in prison in 2007, showing an increase…
How many Iraqis and Afghans have Australian troops captured since 2002? The Defence Minister won’t say. Have any been renditioned, or tortured after being handed over to other coalition forces? The Defence Minister won’t or can’t say. The Australian peop…
One of the world’s most respected legal bodies, the International Commission of Jurists, reported in February 2009 that the anti-terrorism laws passed after 11 September 2001 by Australia and other nations have undermined the rule of law and harmed th…
Admiral Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations, told President Obama on 20 February that conditions at the Guantanamo base met the standards of the Geneva Conventions. For an alternative reality, read this indictment of appalling conditions…
Civil Liberties Australia each year selects 2-4 topics for Australia Day, drawing the attention of people in positions of power to opportunities for change and improvement in Australian society, or to problems that need fixing. The 2009 letters cover: Es…
Neglect of social issues has swelled the number of indigenous people, particularly youth, in State jails and detention centres, former Labor Premier Peter Dowding says. The new WA Liberal Government deserves the opportunity to show it can make a differen…
As Australian Parliamentarians are about to legislate for a new three-person panel to review our terrorism laws, they could do no better than contemplate an American case where the US Patriot Act delivered ‘justice’ gone mad.The case also highli…
Is WA’s Corruption and Crime Commission protecting individuals against excesses by the Executive arm of government? Or is the CCC a major sinew of that arm, party to excess as it ‘fingers’ possibly innnocent people? Barrister and former WA Premier, Peter…
As David Marr comments in the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty is no more than a ghost in the Clarke report finding on his role. He doesn’t get a mention. Nothing. He gets off scot-free in what must be the most bl…
No laws, no protection, no ethics, no justice…this was Guantanamo Bay, terra nullius under President George W Bush. President Barack Obama’s closing the hellhole will be just the first step in what might be a generation-long bid to rehabilitate America…
