It's time to let the courts back in
David Marr
December 29, 2007
Because of a poor track record, I've just about given up on New Year's resolutions. No second helpings. Be kinder to Piers. Buy some clothes. Read more. That sort of thing.
Failure should stop me wishing resolutions on others. But I'm a journalist facing a new year with a new government and a sense there's no better time than now for Labor to fix something that went badly awry last time around.
We can pinpoint the moment the long slide began. On May 5, 1992, two days before a Federal Court was due to free 35 Cambodian boat people imprisoned without charge for more than two years, the Keating government rushed legislation through parliament establishing Australia's trademark system of mandatory detention.
The immigration minister, Gerry Hand, made no secret of what Labor was up to: messing with habeas corpus. He made the point that day not once but twice - "I repeat: the most important aspect of this legislation is that it provides that a court cannot interfere with the period of custody."
He swore blind this was a temporary measure. "It is designed to address only the pressing requirements of the current situation." Fifteen years later the system proposed by Labor and supported by the opposition is still in place.
The resolution I propose for Labor back in power - and for the Opposition once again in opposition, the courts that have dithered on the issue and those newspaper pundits who never understood what was involved - is to make 2008 the year Australia stops messing around with habeas corpus.
The right to have the courts - not the Crown, governments, ministers or public servants - decide who languishes in the clink, was not easily won. But habeas corpus has been the backstop guarantee of liberty in the English-speaking world since the time of Charles II.
To read the full article in the Sydney Morning Herald, click on:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/its-time-to-let-the-courts-back-in/2007/12/28/1198778699733.html
December 29, 2007
Because of a poor track record, I've just about given up on New Year's resolutions. No second helpings. Be kinder to Piers. Buy some clothes. Read more. That sort of thing.
Failure should stop me wishing resolutions on others. But I'm a journalist facing a new year with a new government and a sense there's no better time than now for Labor to fix something that went badly awry last time around.
We can pinpoint the moment the long slide began. On May 5, 1992, two days before a Federal Court was due to free 35 Cambodian boat people imprisoned without charge for more than two years, the Keating government rushed legislation through parliament establishing Australia's trademark system of mandatory detention.
The immigration minister, Gerry Hand, made no secret of what Labor was up to: messing with habeas corpus. He made the point that day not once but twice - "I repeat: the most important aspect of this legislation is that it provides that a court cannot interfere with the period of custody."
He swore blind this was a temporary measure. "It is designed to address only the pressing requirements of the current situation." Fifteen years later the system proposed by Labor and supported by the opposition is still in place.
The resolution I propose for Labor back in power - and for the Opposition once again in opposition, the courts that have dithered on the issue and those newspaper pundits who never understood what was involved - is to make 2008 the year Australia stops messing around with habeas corpus.
The right to have the courts - not the Crown, governments, ministers or public servants - decide who languishes in the clink, was not easily won. But habeas corpus has been the backstop guarantee of liberty in the English-speaking world since the time of Charles II.
To read the full article in the Sydney Morning Herald, click on:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/its-time-to-let-the-courts-back-in/2007/12/28/1198778699733.html
posted by Pax Christi @ Monday, December 31, 2007
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