Category Archives: News

human rights news, views & analysis for last week

Source: Human Rights Law Centre

Told you so, says Metcalf, on Malaysia plan fallout

The head of the Immigration Department, Andrew Metcalf has warned a parliamentary inquiry that the dramatic increase in the number of boats since the Hight Court’s decision forced the Government to halt offshore processing has justified the concerns he raised following the collapse of the Malaysia solution.

Conscience vote on gay marriage wins favour

A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority believes that all MPs should have the opportunity to vote their conscience on same sex marriage. The Herald/Nielsen poll showed that 81 per cent of people believe there should be a conscience vote on the issue. Meanwhile, Opposition leader Tony Abbot has given his strongest indication that he will not support moves for Liberal MPs to have a conscience vote. “It was the clear policy of the coalition at the election that marriage was between a man and a woman…every single member of the coalition was elected on that position and I don’t think we can break faith with the electorate.”

‘The protester’ named Time’s person of 2011

Time Magazine has awarded its annual person of the year to ‘the Protester’ citing the Arab Spring uprisings, the global Occupy movement and the recent Russian protests over elections as examples of how the protests have “redefined people power” around the world and been the force behind the biggest news stories of the past 12 months.

Release sought for asylum boy who attempted suicide

A 17 year old boy who attempted to commit suicide has become the focus of a legal challenge into the prolonged detention of recognised refugees whilst they are awaiting ASIO security checks. The claim seeks to have the immediate release of the 17 year old into community detention. The claim also posed the question regarding the duty of care Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has to unaccompanied children left to deteriorate into a state of mental illness.

Sharia a good fit in some areas says academic

A lecturer at Sydney Law School, Ghena Krayem has said that Australia’s Muslim population would not seek to move towards a parallel legal system, if Islamic practices were integrated better into the current legal framework.  Dr Krayem said in areas where both systems overlapped, such as marriage and divorce, a greater integration of Islamic principles is an appropriate means of ‘enhancing social cohesion, without legislative change.’

Roxon lets down bill of rights backers

Human rights activist, Mary Kostakidis has expressed disappointment that new Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has seemingly departed from her previous desire to introduce a Federal Bill of Rights.  The Australian reports that in 2004 and 2005 when Ms Roxon was opposition spokesperson on legal affairs she was a strong advocate for a Bill of Rights. However, she told reporters on Monday, following her appointment ‘she had no aspirations to introduce one now’.

Occupy movements fights for its future

Police actions in the United States, the pending European winter, and a struggle to maintain a united message has left the global Occupy movement reeling.  A Sydney occupier, Erima voiced her concerns at the recent gathering of Occupy Sydney participants “…are we about the 99 per cent and the movement? Or are we about occupation for an occupation’s sake?

Juries lie at the heart of justice

The 14 December editorial of the Daily Telegraph has called for the retention of jury trials, rejecting the assertion by Justice Peter McClellan of New South Wales that modern trials have become too complex for juries to adjudicate on.  Justice McClellan noted that while previously juries merely had to deal with the testimony of witnesses now they have to deal with the conflicting testimony of scientists. “If there are difficulties for a judge in resolving disputes between experts these difficulties will be greater (for) lay people” he said.

 

The extraordinary case of Andrew Mallard

Andrew Mallard is a Western Australian who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released from prison in 2006 after his conviction was quashed by the High Court of Australia.

Mallard had been convicted of the murder of Pamela Lawrence, a business proprietor, who was killed at her shop, on 23 May 1994. The evidence used in Mallard’s trial was scanty and obscure, and it was later revealed that police withheld vital information from his defence team. Almost twelve years later, after an appeal to the High Court, his conviction was quashed, and a re-trial ordered. However, the charges against him were dropped and Mallard was released. At the time, the Director of Public Prosecutions stated that Andrew Mallard remained the prime suspect and that if further evidence became available he could still be prosecuted.

In 2006 police conducted a review of the investigation and subsequently a cold case review. As a result they uncovered sufficiently compelling evidence to charge convicted murderer Simon Rochford with the murder of Pamela Lawrence and to eliminate Andrew Mallard as a person of interest. After being publicly named as a suspect, Simon Rochford was found dead in his cell in Albany Prison, having committed suicide.

The Western Australian Commission on Crime and Corruption investigated whether there was misconduct by any public officer (police, prosecutors or Members of Parliament) associated with this case and made findings against two policeman and a senior prosecutor.

A book about the case, “Murderer No More: Andrew Mallard and the Epic Fight that Proved his Innocence” was written by Colleen Egan, the journalist who campaigned on Mallard’s behalf for eight years. It was published by Allen & Unwin in June 2010

Evidence at the Trial

Mallard was convicted chiefly on two pieces of evidence. The first was a set of police notes of interviews with Mallard during which, the police claimed, he had confessed. These notes had not been signed by Mallard. The second was a video recording of the last twenty minutes of Mallard’s eleven hours of interviews. The video shows Mallard speculating as to how the murderer might have killed Pamela Lawrence; police claimed that, although it was given in third-person, it was a confession.

Mallard had no history of violence; no murder weapon had been found. No blood was found on Mallard, despite the violence of the murder and the crime scene being covered with it. Nor was DNA evidence produced. He was convicted on the confessions purportedly given during unrecorded interviews and the partial video-recording of an interview. Despite this, Mallard’s appeal to the Supreme Court of Western Australia, in 1996, was dismissed.

Investigation

In 1998, Mallard’s family enlisted the help of investigative journalist Colleen Egan, who in turn managed to get John Quigley MLA and Malcolm McCusker QC involved. All were appalled at the manner in which Mallard’s trial had been conducted and eventually came to be convinced that he was innocent. Based on fresh evidence uncovered by this team, including a raft of police reports that, against standard practice, had never been passed to the defence team, the case was returned to the Court of Criminal Appeal in June 2003. Despite the fresh evidence and an uncontested claim that the DPP had deliberately concealed evidence from the defence, the Court of Criminal Appeal again dismissed the appeal.

High Court Appeal

 In October 2004, Mallard’s legal team was granted special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia and on 6 and 7 September 2005, Mallard’s appeal was heard in the High Court and the Justices subsequently judged unanimously that his conviction be quashed and a re-trial be ordered. During the hearing, Justice Michael Kirby was reported to have said that on one of the pieces of evidence alone – a forensic report, not disclosed to the defence, showing that Mallard’s theory about the weapon used in the murder could not have been true – a re-trial should have been ordered.

The DPP did not immediately drop charges against Mallard but did so six months later immediately before a directions hearing was due. After almost twelve years in prison, Mallard was released on 20 February 2006. However in announcing that the trial would not proceed the DPP stated:

“Finally, I note for the record and for the future that this decision is made on evidence presently available to the prosecution. The discharge of Mr Andrew Mallard on this charge does not alter the fact that he remains the prime suspect for this murder. Should any credible evidence present in the future which again gives the state reasonable prospects of obtaining a conviction again, the state would again prosecute him.”

The Police Commissioner apologised to Mallard for any part the police had played in his conviction. The Premier indicated that the government would be considering compensation, though the Attorney General stated that no decision could be made until the Commission on Crime and Corruption had completed its investigation. However, on 22 November 2006, the Adelaide advertiser carried an AAP story stating that Andrew Mallard had received a A$200,000 ex-gratia payment as partial compensation.

In May 2009 Andrew Mallard was offered a payment of $3.25 million as settlement though the Premier of the state, Colin Barnett said that were Mallard to take civil action against those he held responsible for his wrongful conviction, the government would support any servant of the state in that event.

But the damage was done. lets hope this doesn’t happen again.

Gillard Rejects Rudd on Palestine

JULIA Gillard rejected a plea from Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd for Australia to abstain in a vote on Palestine joining a key United Nations body, instead siding with Israel and the US to oppose the proposal.

Australia was one of 14 countries to vote against Palestine membership of the UN cultural organisation UNESCO this week, while close allies Britain, New Zealand and South Korea were among 52 to abstain.

The vote passed with 107 backing the drive, part of a diplomatic offensive to win formal recognition of a Palestinian state.

The UNESCO vote has entrenched the leadership split on Middle East policy in Australia, after The Age revealed in August that Mr Rudd had written to Ms Gillard urging Australia to abstain from voting on the highly charged resolution on Palestine.

It also comes amid renewed leadership speculation in Canberra, where Kevin Rudd was last night forced to declare his support for the government’s controversial pokies policy after weeks of prevarication.

Ms Gillard has not declared her hand on Palestine’s bid for statehood, but the UNESCO vote is seen as the most likely guide. ”Her track record would suggest to me she would go against [Palestine],” said a close observer.

Ms Gillard has been a vocal supporter of Israel, including during the 2009 Gaza conflict, and declared maintaining strong backing for the Jewish state as one of her foreign policy priorities after toppling Mr Rudd.

Mr Rudd has made several trips to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as Foreign Minister.

Support for Palestine is said to be critical to Australia’s chances of winning a Security Council seat in a ballot next year, which has been strongly backed by Mr Rudd as prime minister and Foreign Minister.

Australia’s rivals for the seat – Finland and Luxembourg – each backed Palestine joining UNESCO, leading some commentators to declare the

Australian Security Council bid effectively dead.

The question of Palestine becoming a UN member is expected to go to the Security Council on November 11, despite threats from Washington that it will veto any resolution.

Australia is not on the Security Council, but should the push fail, the Palestinians are likely to take their bid to the General Assembly, where all 194 member states have a vote.

Israel has reacted angrily to the UNESCO vote, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu withholding at least $100 million from the Palestinian Authority and stepping up the building of settlements in the occupied territories.

The US has stopped a $60 million payment to UNESCO in protest at the vote.

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister did not address a question from The Age on the detail of Mr Rudd’s advice.

In a written statement, she said ”a negotiated peace” was the best way to achieve a Palestinian state. ”We voted against the resolution because it is premature for a subsidiary body of the United Nations (such as UNESCO) to consider this matter while it is still being considered by the United Nations Security Council.”

SOURCE: Gillard rebuffed Rudd on Palestine.

Drunkorexia: girls starving to drink more

SOURCE: Dailytelegraph

 

 

“They are not eating all day because they know they are going to drink at night so they are saving their calories,” she said. “Then they are drinking large quantities of alcohol which has no nutrients, getting excessively drunk because they have no food in their stomach and often engaging in promiscuous sexual activity because they have no control over their behaviour and later on purging to rid themselves of the calories of alcohol.”

 

READ MORE: Drunkorexia: girls starving to drink more | thetelegraph.com.au.

Opinion is more powerful than news

Interesting and thought provoking article at mUmBRELLA by Lachlan Harris, a former ALP and Kevin Rudd chief of staff.

Not necessarily for the headline about Bolt being influential, but about the connotations around opinion being more freely available than factual reportage and that opinion is not bound by facts or evidence as also noted in a comment to the story: “Opinion is much easier to write/speak because it is unrestrained by facts or even bounded by knowledge. Nor does bias have to be acknowledged” (Serena)

Some juicy extracts from the story proper…

“Opinion is cheap and facts are expensive.”

“Forget about citizen journalists. I’ve never met a citizen journalist. Almost all of them are citizen opinionists.”

He said that social media behaviour was also harder to predict. He said: “It’s harder to judge how a million tweets will respond to an event, than 100 journalist who you know personally.”

Read more: Opinion is more powerful than news.

Universities get an F for failing undergrads

OPINION SOURCE: The Globe and Mail

 

 

Students who arrive at university are powerless. They’re not organized. They’re busy with studies and extracurricular activities. They take what they’re given, and try to work within it. Challenging, let alone changing, the teaching status quo seems impossible. As indeed it is, because the rules of the game have been set by the powerful providers within universities, notably the professoriate, with its collective bargaining agreements, tenure, research imperatives and the status that comes from academic activities other than teaching undergraduates.

For a generation or so, universities have been powered by two drives: make themselves stronger in research, and chase money from governments that rewarded institutions for accepting more students. The results were bad for the quality of undergraduate education. Professors favoured research over teaching because their tenure and promotion largely depended on it. More students meant bigger classes, because government funding didn’t keep pace with enrolment while professors taught fewer undergraduate classes.

 

READ MORE: Universities get an F for failing undergrads – The Globe and Mail.

Human rights must be cornerstone of Libya’s law

Opinion Source: CNN.com

The man with the golden gun told us that Gadhafi was wounded but alive, captured with several of his senior officials, and that he was on the road to Misrata. A few hours later came word that Gadhafi, who had ruled Libya for 42 years before being ousted by a popular uprising, had died, thereby escaping the trial and courtroom he so richly deserved.

 

READ MORE: Human rights must be cornerstone of Libya’s law – CNN.com.

Occupy, tea party movements separated at birth

First was The Tea party and now it the Occupy Wall street or Just Occupy whatever you feel passionate about and Occupy.

US President Barack Obama has said that the Occupy Wall Street protesters and the ultra-conservative Tea Party movement are not that different from each other.

While the Occupy movement began as a response to the growing gap between the rich and poor, the Tea Partiers are united by a desire to see the size and scope of government reduced.

At first glance, the Occupy Wall Street movement and the tea party movement appear to be polar opposites. One rails against, among other things, the overarching power of wealthy banks, the other assails the federal government’s overreach into businesses and people’s lives.

But a closer look reveals that the two movements are as much alike as they are different, despite assertions by some backers of each that such comparisons are overly simplistic.

“At 30,000 feet, they both look quite similar in that there is anger, there’s a demand to be heard, and there are concerns that are legitimate,” said former Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, whose 2010 re-election bid was stymied by tea party opposition. “The tea party was initially dismissed as being not very important and the Occupy Wall Street people are being dismissed as not very important.”

Karanja Gacuca, a laid-off Wall Street worker who’s become a member of Occupy’s press and public relations committee at New York’s Zuccotti Park protest site, agrees.

“They were both born of grievances, similar grievances,” he said.

The origins of both movements are rooted in anger with the nation’s financial industry triggered in large part by the federal bailout of Wall Street institutions in 2008, according to several experts who study political and social movements.

That anger was compounded by frustration with lawmakers who members of both movements say haven’t listened to the people who elected them to office.

“The banks are holding back on giving back to the economy,” said Paula Goldfader, a 78-year-old New York retiree. She held a handmade sign that read “Congress Hear Us Now” as she sat among protesters Monday in Zuccotti Park. “They’re working for the stockholders, outlandish pay scales for CEOs. We all have people in our lives that are unemployed.”

“The similarity may just be we are frustrated with the behaviors on Wall Street,” added Brendan Steinhauser, director for federal and state campaigns for FreedomWorks, a group linked to the tea party movement. “However, the tea party is much more angry and frustrated with politicians in Washington, D.C., than the Wall Street occupiers are.”

Other tea party leaders view the Wall Street protests with disdain and say any comparison between the two is apples and oranges.

“Those occupying Wall Street and other cities, when they are intelligible, want less of what made America great and more of what is damaging America: a bigger, more powerful government to come in and take care of them so they don’t have to work like the rest of us who pay our bills,” Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler, co-founders of Tea Party Patriots, said in a written statement headlined: “Occupy Wall Street? They’re no Tea Partiers.”

If anger and frustration are the ties that bind Occupy Wall Street and the tea party, the links begin to fray quickly after that.

For example, supporters of each movement accuse the other of not being a genuine grassroots effort. Occupy Wall Street participants say the tea party was bankrolled by wealthy conservative groups like FreedomWorks and billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.

“The tea party was originally an organic expression of discontent among a segment of the U.S. working class, largely white, who were feeling betrayed,” said Christine Kelly, a political science professor who examines social movements at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. “That movement morphed into something quite different and had an exclusionary message of who it represented. Then it became highly funded and then it became politically incorporated.”

Tea party backers and many conservative blogs suggest that the Occupy protests are being financed by labor unions or wealthy liberal Democratic Party patrons like George Soros, but Occupy spokesmen deny it.

“I don’t know what the point is, and I think it’s going to backfire because when you peel the onion back, you find out who’s behind it and who’s financing it,” Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., a tea party favorite, said of the Wall Street protesters. “It’s not a true grassroots movement.”

An Occupy Wall Street spokesman said the movement gets its funding from on-site donations or credit card donations through the movement’s website, not from unions or Soros.

The tea party and the Wall Street demonstrators are taking different paths to address their issues. Tea partiers delved deeply into electoral politics last year, vetting and fielding candidates who shared their philosophy on government and fiscal matters.

That involvement resulted in the election of conservatives such as Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky to the Senate and 87 GOP freshmen in the House of Representatives, many of them backed by tea party activists. Their presence on Capitol Hill has influenced debates on deficit reduction, immigration and environmental issues.

Whether or not the Occupy Wall Street movement will seek solutions to its issues through politics is unclear. Some members of the amorphous movement have formed working groups at various protest sites to develop lists of demands and figure out exactly how to get their grievances addressed.

But Occupy Wall Street has studiously avoided aligning itself with Democrats – some of whom view the occupy movement as a potential “Tea Party Left” – or any other political entity, for fear of having its message co-opted.

“Most people in the movement are hesitant because they don’t trust politicians or the political process,” Gacuca said.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., experienced the movement’s ambivalence firsthand recently when protesters at an Atlanta site declined to let the civil rights movement veteran speak.

Still, the Occupy movement’s reluctant political stance hasn’t kept President Barack Obama from speaking positively of the Wall Street occupiers. He told ABC News that the movement “isn’t that much different from some of the protests that we saw from the tea party.”

“Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government,” Obama said. “They feel that their institutions aren’t looking out for them.”

While some prominent Democrats want to forge stronger ties with the movement, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., co-chair of the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus, warns fellow Democrats not to be heavy-handed in trying to adopt Occupy Wall Street.

“This thing is jelling, but it has to have time to do it,” Ellison said. “But at this point these folks are so distanced from the political system that the last thing they want is some politician telling them what to do. They’ll discover it for themselves.”