South Australia is about to take Australian personal freedoms backwards by a law making it a crime to get together with your mates, and declaring you guilty by association without doing anything wrong. Liz Murray explains how dangerous such laws are. Ant…
Australia’s new Chief Justice, Robert French, once pointed out to Parliament it was easier to get a gig as a High Court judge than be appointed to the Native Title Tribunal (which he headed at the time). And he proved a dab hand at repartee when explaini…
Your report, Haneef documents to remain secret (The Age, 29/7) reveals that the role of the Australian Federal Police – providing questionable ‘evidence’ that resulted in Dr Haneef being arrested and detained for 12 days – will never be examined in an o…
The future directions for laws and legal matters in Australia is determined in three meetings a year of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG), which also includes New Zealand.
The July 2008 meeting covered a range of important matters, incl…
The joint Indonesia-Timor Leste Truth and Friendship Commission, which has just reported, fell far short of what it could have achieved, says Timotio de Deus of the Judicial System Monitoring Program of Timor Leste. There should now be a process of bring…
An Algerian avionics expert, detained, on the USA-Canada border, six days before 11 Sept 2001: the innocent Benamar Benatta’s five-year saga of torture and despair nears closure as the Canadian Government prepares to negotiate compensation for the man, b…
Appointing Australia’s High Court judges is too potent and pervasive an act to be solely a perk of the government of the day, says Prof George Williams. He calls for a non-partisan, non-ongoing commission to take over the crucial role of recommending a s…
A full bench of Federal Court has ruled that ASIO must tell deported peace activist Scott Parkin why they gave him an adverse security assessment. In 2005, the Australian Government cancelled Parkin’s visa and escorted him back to the USA. Now he can fin…
If Schapelle Corby is innocent, the Australian media have become her persecutor. So writes CLA member Roger A.Smith, probably Australia’s most experienced, hands-on observer of the Indonesian legal system, in this letter to a writer on The Australian ne…
When an Indigenous girl is gang-raped, sometimes the justice system goes on trial. But what of our society and ourselves, by inattention permitting a festering inequity that breeds an inevitability of trouble. Peter Applegarth SC of Queensland Council fo…
