Category: Human Rights
  • Brendan Nyst, Criminal Law, Human Rights, International, Opinion

Open Justice – Racial Inequality, Video Evidence And Probable Cause

Questions about racial inequality continue to simmer in the United States following last week's decision of a Staten Island Grand Jury not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo to stand trial for the killing of Eric Garner earlier this year. It's a decision which has even some of the country’s most staunchly conservative commentators, such as Fox News traditionalist Bill O’Reilly, scratching their heads in disbelief. Protesters in New York have taken up from where the citizens of Ferguson left off. But unlike the unsavoury shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri, which was shrouded in conflicting versions of events, the video evidence of Garner's death was there for all to see. The deceased's non-threatening behaviour was visible, his cries for help audible, and the excess use of force by the Officers, irrefutable. Upon examining the deceased's body, the coroner labelled Eric Garner's death a homicide, having regard to the fact that he died as a result of a violent attack.  The video clearly shows the officer applying a rear chokehold, a manoeuvre banned by the NYPD in 1993. The evidence was damning.  Or so we thought. On 3 December 2014, a Staten Island Grand Jury declined to indict the officer.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Human Rights, Opinion

Exactly What They Take

Frank Darabont’s 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption is an enduring classic of American cinema. Based on the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, it tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a young banker sentenced to life imprisonment in the tough Shawshank State Penitentiary for the murder of his wife and her lover, a crime he says he didn’t commit. That’s tough material for any audience, and when the film was first released it all but tanked at the box office. But eventually moviegoers came to embrace the morality tale at the heart of Andy’s redemption, and the film went on to outstanding critical acclaim, recognised as one of the best films of our time. Most of the most quotable quotes come from Andy’s fellow inmate Ellis “Red” Redding, played with understated dignity by the great Morgan Freeman, whose gentle narration becomes a quiet commentary of Dufresne’s desperate struggle to maintain his self-worth in the face of brutality and hopelessness.
  • Chris Nyst, Human Rights, International, Opinion, Privacy

Carly Nyst Addresses UN Human Rights Council

On Friday last week my dear daughter Carly Nyst, a UK-based Australian lawyer who is currently the Legal Director of the human rights group Privacy International in London, addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on the right to privacy in the digital age. As part of a panel which included Flavia Panasieri , the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Catalino Botero Marino, Carly told the Commission that the right to privacy is a fundamental part of human dignity, which guarantees the protection of other human rights such as the freedom of expression, and should be jealously defended by the United Nations, particularly in the wake of WikiLeaks and the Edward Snowden Affair. The Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Botero said the Commission recognised that systematic collection of data by governments directly affects the right to privacy and freedom of expression, and appropriate safeguards and controls must be elaborated to prevent those negative effects on human rights.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Human Rights, Opinion

Need For Restraint

Earlier this week I was sitting in the public gallery of a Magistrates Court on the Sunshine Coast waiting for my client's matter to be called before the magistrate, when a downcast defendant was led into the dock with both hands locked together in a pair of impressive-looking wrist restraints. The police prosecutor proceeded to launch into a dissertation on the defendant's misdemeanours, when the Magistrate abruptly interrupted.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Human Rights, Opinion

Heaven Forbid, Maybe Even You And Me

Last week I was invited by Amnesty International to join a panel of criminal justice experts discussing the human rights implications of Queensland's anti-bikie laws, indefinite detention regime, and other current and mooted legislative changes challenging many of our accepted notions of personal liberty. The discussion, which took place in the Banco Court of Brisbane's new Supreme Court complex, and involved a broad spectrum of speakers ranging from the Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart to legal academics and practitioners, was introduced by the President of the Queensland Court of Appeal Justice Margaret McMurdo, who spoke powerfully of the need for lawyers to find a voice in championing human rights both here and internationally.