CLA’s policy on criminal justice
All Australians are entitled to protection from arbitrary arrest and unnecessary detention; to a fair, speedy and public trial; to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and to legal advice and representation.
Sentencing should be based on the principle of rehabilitation wherever possible.
From Canada comes a cautionary tale of how digital trackers – already approved in the USA – can be put inside the body of patients and prisoners in particular to keep them docile and permanently monitored ‘in the cloud’ in real time. Is this happening in Australia: CLA would like to know.
Sue Neill-Fraser has lodged a request for a full appeal hearing to the High Court of Australia…for the second time. The High Court summarily dismissed her request a decade ago, but there is much more reason to believe she deserves to be heard this time, after one of three Tasmanian Criminal Appeal Court judges recently ruled her conviction should be quashed.
A battle over decriminalising some drug use in the ACT is holding back help for desperate people, and probably endangering lives, drug law reform expert Bill Bush says. The outcomes in the ACT are likely a forerunner of changes to drug laws throughout Australia…eventually.
Some 35 official US tough guys, Navy SEALs, have won an interim ruling that they don’t have to obey US Department of Defense orders because they object to vaccination on religious grounds. Will they be demoted down the marine order, and end up as otters…or even ROTTERS.
How would you described Australian Members of Parliament who want Pacific islanders to have more rights and greater decision-making powers than the Australians whom the MPs represent? Hypocrites would be the only world: meet the retiring Kevin Andrews MHR and Minister for the Pacific, Senator Zed Seselja…islander advocates but no lovers of equal democratic rights for all Aussies.
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.
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.
A man who was there are at the foundations of legal structures in Canberra, Allan N Hall AM, has explained clearly why citizens of the the NT – and of the ACT – should have equal rights to all citizens of Australian States in a submission to the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. The committee clearly states it is considering voting rights, and is not interested in rehashing the voluntary assisted dying debate The committee’s report is due on 6 October 2021.
A federal parliament committee is hearing widespread views on the state of Australian democracy, including our inability to amend the Constitution and a reluctance to hold many referendums, in a series of ‘public’ meetings available to all citizens through streaming. Here is a precis of the comments in a submission by academic Dr Bede Harris, who has recently launched a major book on the subject.
