As part of CLA’s campaign to improve mandatory disclosure by police and prosecutors throughout Australia, we are monitoring what the legal profession is saying. Here’s some comments from Tasmanian barristers, including that local magistrates say Tasmania Police treats courts with contempt. If so, perhaps a magistrate will have the courage to charge Police Commissioner Donna Adams with contempt of court?
Jurisdictions throughout Australia are hell-bent on banning symbols they don’t like, when it is way the symbol or sign is used rather than the image itself that is the problem. CLA made this point in a submission to a parliamentary process in the ACT, pointing out that there are thousands of signs, symbols, gestures, chants that could – and do, at times – give offence when misused.
Recent revelations of secret recordings of lawyers and their clients at Risdon Prison by Tasmanian Police over two months raised major alarm bells. The Commonwealth Ombudsman has been consistently calling out TasPol for its recording devices and surveillance warrant failures for years. TasPol's “compliance culture” is lacking, the Ombudsman says. In other words, TasPol does not obey the law. SPECIAL ANALYSIS reveals how extensive the TasPol problem is: nothing less than a full inquiry into TasPol will get to the root causes of its problems.
Police can self-authorise some warrants, or get a magistrate or judge to issue others. But whatever method is mandated, warrants are frequently incorrectly issued in Australia on false, dodgy or incomplete information containing wrong details and not meeting legal requirements, or by unauthorised people. The Commonwealth monitors warrant processes, and its Ombudsman has singled out one state in particular, Tasmania, for compliance and culture criticism over the past few years
Election in the offing: law ’n order pollies get desperate. Both major parties want new ‘frighten the citizens laws’, reducing people’s rights, increasing secret surveillance, giving police yet more powers. Pollies pretend the ill-thought-through laws will reduce crime. More likely crime will increase. Stand by for other ghastly laws from the skeleton hands of Premier Perrottet and Pals of the NSW parliamentary ghost train, where scare the punters trumps care for the citizens.
Throughout the world, people are losing the human rights protection they thought they had. The loss of a layer of personal protection is happening at the stroke of the pen of judges, presidents and ministers. In Australia, we don’t have a layer to lose: that’s why it’s even more urgent fo the new government, the Greens and Independents to require the Albanese government to bring in a national Human Rights Act, much sooner than later.
‘No Rights Without Remedies’? CLA’s Human Rights Acts campaign is gathering momentum as we await a report after public submissions and hearings before the ACT Legislative Assembly.
What are the laws and rules around capturing images of your face in Australia? What are the rules about storing the images/videos, and how they can be used. We don’t have any clear explanation…just as a dire warning emerges from police plans in the UK for wholesale, widespread facial tech capture and use/abuse there.
The chair of Republican Governors of the USA, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, has ordered his Family and Protective Services Department to investigate parents who get medical treatment for their children, and told other state agencies to pry into health facilities who provide the services. His target: children and their parents facing gender identity health issues. The fascist order is a foretaste of what a future American society might look like if an extremist is elected President in 2024.
How come governments can ‘downskirt’ drivers and passengers without regard to their personal privacy? What happens to the raunchy photos spotted by the government road spies? We need a human rights act, and privacy laws, to protect us from our governments.
