Courts

The biggest slap in my five months of house arrest came not at the start when the magistrate said he wanted to make it “as much like jail” as he could. It came only days from the end, at the hands of an elderly hospital volunteer, on one of my rare excursions into the real world.

As I walked into the foyer of the Austin Hospital for a check-up to see how my newly transplanted liver was behaving, the beaming, bespectacled old-timer asked how I was doing.

I said: “I feel great. Only 12 more days and I’m out of jail.” His mocking, condescending reply: “You weren’t in jail.” I felt like saying: “You try it, sunshine.”

Continue reading "The Human Headline:  Ungagged and unbowed" »

It is encouraging to see that a spirit of bipartisanship is being brought to the issue of patenting human genes.

However, it will take more than a recent House of Representatives motion calling for an end to the patenting of isolated human DNA to achieve change.

Despite the US Federal Court finding patents for the BRCA1 and 2 genes invalid, the weight of precedent is against the finding being upheld.

Continue reading "Reserving the right to protect our genetic code" »

Room 22B of the Federal Court of NSW grew pretty crowded as Kristy Fraser-Kirk’s $37 million sexual harassment lawsuit against David Jones, its directors and ex-CEO Mark McInnes came to a head. 

But if you went to the public gallery expecting to see any of the high-profile players you’d be sorely disappointed.

While the case itself had enough salacious and emotive elements to see it dramatically splashed across print, TV and online as a top-rating story, the scene in court was one carefully cloaked in the cool, passive-aggressive language of the legal profession. 

Continue reading "Kristy taught us something, we’re just not sure what yet" »

When it comes to illicit drugs and how our society should best deal with its impact, Ken Crispin is one man to whom it is worth listening.

Crispin has been practicing law since 1972, but more relevantly, he was the Director of Public Prosecutions in the ACT from 1991 to 1994 and a judge in that jurisdiction until 2007.  So this is why Crispin has made a bit of a splash over the past week by arguing that the US lead ‘War on Drugs’ which was debated and passed by Congress forty years this month, is failing our community.

Crispin, in his recently published book The Quest for Justice, has dared to say what many Australian judges and magistrates think privately to be the case.  That treating illicit drug use as a criminal justice problem has not worked and will never work.

Continue reading "Time we had an exit strategy from the war on drugs" »

The death of 24 year old Matthew McEvoy outside a night club in Melbourne in 2008 was as a result of acts of senseless violence by two young men, Andriyas Tello and Lauren Sako.

But as tragic as Matthew McEvoy’s death is, it is important to remember that the justice system in a democratic society is not there as a tool of revenge or bloodlust, but exists rather as a means of both protecting society and hoping that these young men do not offend in this serious way again.

David Penberthy on this site last Thursday took issue with Victorian Supreme Court Justice Paul Coghlan’s sentencing of Tello, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter, to a period of 5 years imprisonment (Sako has already been sent to jail for 6 years with a 3 year minimum term).

Continue reading "Five years in jail is a hell of a time, and a fitting sentence" »

In two courts yesterday, two very different sentences were handed down, for two stomach-turning crimes which epitomise public disgust at random, life-destroying violence.

Did the courts reflect that public disgust in their sentences? Did they do their job in reflecting community standards? In one case, probably. In the other, most definitely not.

Both cases involved indiscriminate and unprompted violence, the kind of blink-of-an-eye brain-snaps which terrify every parent, where an innocent young man was jumped, king-hit and left for dead.

Continue reading "Two courts, two sentences, two types of justice" »

About 100 nautical miles off the Australian coast on the first night of a cruise, Dianne Brimble accepted a dose of the illicit drug Fantasy from a man she barely knew.

Mark Wilhelm gave her the drug, that he admits - but the offer of a drug alone does not amount to manslaughter. This was the personal assessment of a Supreme Court of NSW judge Roderick Howie yesterday, as he took a guilty plea from Mark Robin Wilhelm to the supply of Fantasy to Ms Brimble - and he’s right.

As much as her bereaved family and others may have looked to a manslaughter conviction for vindication, the NSW DPP rightly revealed today they would no longer prosecute him for manslaughter.

Continue reading "Sometimes the evidence people want isn’t there" »

I don’t know Luke Adams. Chances are I never will. But when I viewed the graphic, and much-publicised, video of the promising footballer (and his friend) getting bashed at a Prahran Hungry Jack’s last July, my heart skipped a beat.

It was incredibly disturbing footage. On Friday, two of Adams’ attackers were sentenced in the County Court.

Mark Bogtstra, 22, received intensive corrections order, requiring community work for nine months. The man who put Adams in a headlock and let him fall to the ground, bouncer Nathan Karazisis, 24, was sentenced to two years and four months in jail, and made to serve at least a year.

Continue reading "Soft sentences a king hit for justice" »

Are there any men out there who feel genuinely aggrieved at the idea that a travel company might offer packages specifically for women?

And no, I’m not talking about those of you who wish you could significantly increase your strike rate by being the only bloke on the Contiki bus. I mean men who really feel your human rights are violated by a group of women planning a chicks-only trip.

In general most people are in favour of legal protection against discrimination - if it’s the kind of discrimination that prevents someone having the same opportunities as everyone else because of some arbitrary barrier such as sex, race, or a disability. But sometimes the application of that principle is more arbitrary than the discrimination it’s trying to address.

Continue reading "Sometimes principle is just stupid" »

In Cairns, a young Queensland woman faces the prospect of up to seven years prison for something that over 14 000 women do every year in this state alone - for having an abortion. Her partner faces three years prison for assisting her.

Once-was-feminist-campaigner and now Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh is at pains to try and convince us that the charges are not related to abortion, but rather to do with the way in which the abortion took place.

Premier Bligh has feigned concern about the case – “tragic” she calls it. The Premier is a hypocrite. Her government could act immediately to bring an end to the trauma that this young couple is facing. But not only have they refused to act – they have done everything they can to further add to the isolation of the young couple.

Continue reading "Bligh is a hypocrite on Queensland abortion law" »

The humiliation of Marcus Einfeld is now complete. The NSW Court of Appeal struck him off this week, concurring with the argument of the NSW Bar Association that he is not a “fit and proper person” to practice as a lawyer ever again.

Representing the Bar Association, Barrister Christine Adamson SC said Einfeld’s speeding case showed he considered himself to be “above the law” and displayed “extraordinary hubris” in thinking he could use his “skill and ingenuity” as a respected lawyer of some 40 years to trick a court into cancelling a speeding fine.

A $77 speeding fine.The public reveled in it, as Einfeld for many years had been one of the greatest offenders of the deep-seated Australian belief that being massively up yourself is close on the worst crime a person can commit.

Continue reading "How the Marcus Einfeld story was almost not written" »

A serious, if unintended problem has emerged from the last changes the Parliament made to the Family Law Act.

The changes were designed to improve shared parenting, but the safety of the child was meant to take precedence.

However it seems the courts are interpreting the changed law to mean that the right of the non-custodial parent to know the child or children is of greater consideration than the safety of the child.

Continue reading "Move quickly to fix the problems with child custody" »