Attorney-General Robert McClelland has spoken publicly about his personal commitment to ensuring the Commonwealth operates to the highest possible standards as a Model Litigant. Here’s the relevant extracts from his speech to a seminar in Canberra in lat…
One man’s freedom – that of Mohammed Jawad – was hard won from Guantanamo Bay, but he is at last, after more than six years, back home in Afghanistan. Here’s the story, written by one of the US military lawyers who secured Jawad’s freedom, David Frakt, o…
Attorney-General Robert McClelland’s 450-page discussion paper proposes reforms to anti-terror laws claimed to be ‘valid, credible, effective and balanced’. But it’s questionable whether the proposals hit any of those marks: instead, they demonstrate a f…
Crime continues to trend down, but wobbly politicians still play the vote-seeking ‘law and order’ card, reacting to rabid media beat-ups. The latest serious crime bill lowers the bar for prosecutors, doubly punishes those who have already served time for…
The dangers of modern anti-terror legal and security excesses are demonstrated by the inefficiencies and errors of the past, Keith McEwan says, with proof available in his own ASIO files. There is no reason to believe that the modern computer age’s abili…
For the military to arrest, indefinitely lock up and possibly maltreat persons not involved in combat without timely legal process is not the ordinary citizen’s concept of justice, and Neil James knows it.He may quote arcane and obscure laws adlib to d…
The Canberra Times reports in ”Police argue ACT murder law too lenient” (July 23, p1) that in formal evidence to the ACT Assembly committee into changing the murder law police Commander Kevin Zuccato stated that Nanette ”Sandy” Porritt had been stabb…
Editor, West Australian: Sir, I sympathise with all concerned with the incarceration in China of Stern Hu of Rio Tinto, suspected of industrial sabotage. However, in relation to the fact that he is now under consideration of being charged, we in Australi…
In Australia, the Executive Government appoints judges to the Supreme Court without any public process. How different is the US system! There, the US President lobbies the American people by email in support of his candidate for the post of Justice of th…
A senior US Government law officer has admitted before the US Senate that the offence on which Australian David Hicks was convicted does not exist, and that his conviction is likely to be thrown out. Hicks may be in for a big compensation payout from bot…