The Rule Of Law
In a time of increasingly vigorous criticism of some of our court processes, many were taken aback when Victoria’s Supreme Court recently hit back at its detractors, carpeting three politicians, a journalist and a newspaper editor, over public statements criticising the sentencing of terror offenders. A couple of months ago three ministers of the Turnbull government, – Greg Hunt, Alan Tudge and Michael Sukkar – publicly slammed Victorian judges for what they characterised as inappropriate leniency and “ideological experiments” in sentencing terrorists, Mr Sukkar asserting the judges’ approach “has eroded any trust that remained in our legal system.”
Reasonable Conduct
The threat last week by One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts to report Fairfax Media journalists to police for stalking, raises some interesting questions. Last Thursday the Senator’s senior media adviser, Sean Black, threatened to complain to police about what he called “continued pestering” and “harassment”. His claims followed allegedly persistent emails from journalists seeking answers from Senator Roberts about renunciation of his UK citizenship, in the context of the broader dual nationality debate. Mr Black reportedly told Fairfax Media to “stop the harassment” and warned that further “pestering or harassment” would be referred to the Queensland Police Service for prosecution.
Sifting Through The Dross
The Roman Catholic Cardinal George Pell has retained a brilliant USSR-born, Jewish lawyer to defend him. Melbourne-based barrister Robert Richter QC has been retained to defend the Cardinal on historical sex charges. Having worked often with Robert, I can tell you the Cardinal has an excellent man in his corner. But nonetheless, many experienced lawyers are privately wondering if he can possibly get a fair trial.
Doli Incapax – Youngest Offender Ever Charged With Murder
In the early hours of the morning following Australia Day last year, 26 year old Patrick Slater was found dead in a Perth railway station, a 25cm chest wound had penetrated his aorta and both lungs. Last week, in the WA Supreme Court, five young adults and one teenager were found guilty of his murder. But not all those allegedly involved in the incident actually went on trial. The youngest – just 11 years of age at the time – remains in legal limbo, awaiting his fate. At that tender age, he achieves the unenviable record of being the youngest person ever to be charged with murder in Australia.
The Bird Is Coming
I read a news story just the other day about a self-declared “grammar vigilante” who reportedly prowls the streets of Bristol, in south-west England, correcting errant punctuation on business signs. Apparently for the past decade or so he has been venturing out late at night, wearing a coat and black hat, to surreptitiously correct sloppy grammar on many of the city’s billboards. Carrying an eight-foot-long tool he refers to as an “apostophiser,” which allows him to correct punctuation marks on elevated signs, he has rectified scores of signs, including such public abominations as “Potato’s for sale”, “Amy’s Nail’s, and Cambridge Motor’s.”
Feud
Some court cases concern life and liberty, some are about money and manipulation, and others grubby politics and power. But in defamation cases everything’s at stake.
Our reputation and good name is our most valued asset, because when all is said and done it’s all we have. Youth is transient, beauty skin-deep, and material riches illusory. Our physical strength and allure inevitably wane and fade like yesterday’s flowers, and affluence and influence desert us like a fickle, fatuous friend.
A Foreign Land
The sentencing this week in China of three Australian employees of James Packer’s Crown Resorts brings into sharp focus the scary reality of globalisation. Melbourne-based executive Jason O’Connor and China based staff members Jerry Xuan and Pan Dan all pleaded guilty last Monday to charges of illegally promoting gambling, and were ordered to serve between 9 and 10 months in a Chinese prison. Additionally, the Shanghai court imposed fines on the three Australians, along with 14 other Chinese Crown Resorts employees, totalling $1.67 million.
Citizen John and the Genie
There’s a common misconception in some circles that only criminals, miscreants and ne’er-do-wells attract the attention of investigators like Federal and State police, corporate and other regulatory watchdogs, the tax man and the like. Most of us blithely go through life believing if we always try to act honestly and honourably there is no risk we will ever be targeted. Unfortunately, it’s just not true.
Parole On Trial
The Prime Minister’s call for an overhaul of state parole laws in the wake of this week’s terrorist attack in Melbourne has the sniff of political scapegoating.
Nyst Legal Establishes a Brisbane Presence
Nyst Legal is recognised as one of Queensland’s leading criminal and regulatory law firms.Whilst we have been based on the Gold Coast for the past four decades we have always practised extensively in all Brisbane courts, as well as those in other metropolitan and regional centres throughout Queensland and New South Wales.
We have now established a presence in the Brisbane CBD at Level 27, Santos Place, 32 Turbot Street, Brisbane, to service and build on our Brisbane-based clientele, particularly in criminal and regulatory matters.
The Better Part Of Us
The 1959 German film Die Bruecke by director Bernhard Wiki is set in the final days of World War 2, as American tanks drive the Allied victory home on German soil. In a small German village seven young schoolboys declare their fierce determination to defend their country against the American invaders. When they are called to bolster the army’s badly depleted ranks the boys are all elated, but their teacher secretly entreats a company sergeant to spare them from combat, knowing Germany’s defeat is by now inevitable.
A Small, Small World
On June 28, 1963, the then-President of the United States of America, the late great John Fitzgerald Kennedy, addressed a joint session of the Oireachtas Eireann, the national parliament of Ireland, in Dublin. He spoke not only as the world’s most powerful political leader of his era, but as the proud descendant of an impoverished Irish emigrant family.