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.

Court warns of retrial, possibly at great expense, CLA says

Despite having a delay of 18 months for judicial/legal and Covid reasons during which to prepare, Tasmania’s Court of Criminal Appeal refuses to live-stream the Sue Neill-Fraser case starting 1 March 2021, Although there is intense interest Australia-wide, only 18 people can sit in the public gallery, 17 can watch CCTV coverage from the next door courtroom, and eight media are to be corralled in another separate CCTV room. The court claims a reason for no live-streaming is that it might order a retrial, a final decision that is actually beyond the power of the court to make. Neill-Fraser is appealing a murder conviction from 2009, which CLA believes was a miscarriage of justice.

LATE NEWS: Robert Richter QC of Melbourne has replaced Tom Percy QC of Perth as SNF’s barrister, due to Covid-19.

Kissing judge features in Grand Poobah pash: age shall not weary him

Just as chief judge Alan Blow makes a public PR bid for retaining his ’talented’ judges unchanged for a total of 20 years-plus – 6 men and 1 women, it should be noted – one of them (and not the woman) gets caught on camera late at night in the Grand Poobah nightcoub in an “intimate kiss” with a junior employee who reports to him. No wonder CLA and the Tasmanian Women Lawyers are calling for a judicial commission in Tasmania, urgently.

3000 people call for Defence Inquiry reforms

In a detailed criticism, the human rights advocate wife of an honoured SAS RSM soldier outlines why our military personnel are plagued by second-class regulations and rights even as they deliver first-class service to the nation. More than 3000 people have signed a petition to the Australian Parliament, agreeing with her, that Australian soldiers too should have equal protection before the law, and not be subjected to ‘Roo Bar’ regulations which form a barrier to justice. Photo: ADF whistleblower speaks to a rally in front of the ACT courts complex.

Camera phones single best tool for police accountability

Ordinary citizens are starting to fight back agains the problems of police-investigating police (PIP). Camera phones are becoming instruments of truth when police officers collude to deny, during internal police inquiries, that they used excessive force, or bashed, a person they were arresting. You have a right to film police in public, provided you don’t hinder them. ‘Stop PIP’ is a new CLA campaign, in development.

CLArion Feb 2021: CLA calls for equal rights for Territorians

Civil Liberties Australia, in one of its 2021 Australia Day letters, has asked federal MP Kevin Andrews to propose a Private Member’s Bill that would reverse the 1997 federal law he introduced which currently overturns ACT and NT citizens, and their parliaments, having the human right to vote on euthanasia in their territories. Another OzDay letter, to all state and territory jurisdictions, proposes that they review their patchy and inequitable censorship rules for prisoner mail. A third letter calls on the WA Police Commissioner to formally apologise to all those people named falsely and irresponsibly by police as ‘persons of interest’ over a period of 25 years before WA secured the recent conviction and life sentence of Bradley Edwards for the Claremont murder.

CLA posts Australia Day letters for 2021

To Kevin Andrews MHR:
Civil Liberties Australia on Australia Day 2021 asks the man responsible for citizens of the ACT and the NT having lesser rights than all others Australians – they are not able to even vote on dying with dignity/euthansia law – to ‘rescind’ the federal law he promoted by lodging a new Private Member’s Bill to restore the rights of 600,000 fellow Australians. Here’s the Andrews letter.

To WA Police Commissioner (and Police Minister):
On Australia Day 2021, CLA asks for an apology from WAPOL and the State for those people the police falsely and irresponsibly named as ‘persons-of-interest’ before, some 25 years later, Bradley Edwards was convicted and sentenced. We asked particularly for an apology of Peter Weygers and civil liberties: Weygers was then the local president, whose reputation was ruined by the erroneous police accusation. Click here for the letter.

To Ministers for Corrective Services, throughout Australia:
CLA asks, on Australia Day 2021, that you review the rules, sometimes archaic, about what prisoners can receive through the mail and other associated censorship concerns, including their rights to educational material and to private correspondence with the lawyers. For the letter sent to WA click here. And for a CLA/Uni of Qld report on the state of censorship in prisons in Australia, click here.

Aussie pollies lack Dutch courage

The Dutch tax office issued 20,000 ‘false’ claims of debt fraud against its citizens: the Dutch government resigned. The Australian government issued 470,00 ‘false’ debt claims against its citizens. No-one resigned.Australian politicians don’t even have Dutch courage.

Stand tall for ADF PTS reform

Defence veterans have launched yet another campaign seeking justice in dealings with the Dept of Defence. You would think, for the number of times that political heavies wrap themselves in the flag alongside men and women in uniform, that our serving personnel would be very well treated by the federal government. No so, say the vets, as the wife, Dr Kay Danes, of a four-decade soldier, Kerry, explains.