Category Archives: Law (Australia)

Immigration detention: Rohingya refugee NZYQ freed after high court case did not show remorse for raping 10-year-old

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Psychologist noted ‘risk factors’ for possible reoffending including ‘attitudes’ stemming from his own childhood abuse, court documents reveal

The plaintiff who overturned the legality of indefinite immigration detention in the high court was found to be owed protection because he experienced forced labour and his brother was abducted and killed in Myanmar.

Previously unreported details of the stateless Rohingya refugee, known as NZYQ, were contained in court documents published on Tuesday, including that the judge did not find he had shown remorse in relation to his conviction for the rape of a 10-year-old boy, despite pleading guilty. The documents also show a psychologist had noted “risk factors” for possible reoffending including “attitudes” stemming from his own childhood abuse.

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Labor and Coalition team up to retrospectively authorise ‘unlawful’ use of material gathered by Australian agency

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Bill authorises previous uses of coercive powers, removing legal question mark that had dogged Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission

Labor and the Coalition teamed up to pass a bill retrospectively authorising potentially “unlawful” use of material gathered in special investigations by Australia’s most secretive law enforcement agency.

The bill is the third attempt to cure a long-running legal defect in the powers of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to conduct special investigations and operations.

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‘Draconian’ conditions come into effect for 93 foreigners released after being illegally detained by Australia

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Labor says ‘significant number’ of released detainees were convicted of serious criminal offences as experts express concern over rushed bill

All 93 foreigners identified by Australia’s home affairs department as being affected by a recent high court judgment that found they were being illegally detained have now been released.

The immigration minister, Andrew Giles, confirmed on Saturday the 93 people had been released and that all of them would be forced to comply with strict visa restrictions, including wearing electronic monitoring devices.

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Labor’s emergency laws after immigration detention ruling may amount to ‘extrajudicial’ punishment

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Legal experts say constitutional challenges to new laws are likely as Labor braces for possible compensation claims following high court decision

A legal challenge to emergency legislation responding to the high court’s decision on indefinite detention is likely, with advocates warning the Albanese government the changes may be unconstitutional.

Alison Battisson, the director of Human Rights For All, and David Manne, the executive director of Refugee Legal, have both warned the changes may amount to “extrajudicial” punishment.

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Queensland government to moving to establish peak youth justice body as crime issues dominate

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Exclusive: Palaszczuk government expected to begin process of establishing peak body amid pressure to crack down on youth crime

Queensland is looking to establish a youth justice peak body as the issue threatens to become a major sore point for the Palaszczuk government ahead of next year’s election.

Guardian Australia understands the state government will launch a competitive tender process and seek expressions of interest from multiple organisations across the sector.

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Whistleblower David McBride loses bid to stave off trial over public interest defence

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ACT supreme court says law provides no duty to members of the military to act in the public interest

David McBride has lost a bid to stave off his trial after again failing to convince a court that soldiers have a duty to act in the public interest.

On Wednesday, the ACT supreme court delivered a blow to McBride as he prepared for his jury trial over the alleged leaking of confidential military information to journalists.

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Whistleblower David McBride’s trial delayed slightly over key public interest argument

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Former military lawyer has pleaded not guilty to five charges in ACT supreme court over decision to leak material that was used as basis for ABC series on war crimes

David McBride’s trial has been slightly delayed to allow him a second chance to argue he was duty-bound to act in the public interest while leaking confidential military information to journalists.

Meanwhile, Australia’s intelligence agencies are supporting an effort to keep some material involved in the case secret, including from jurors, saying its disclosure could jeopardise “the security and defence of Australia”.

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Immigration detention: Labor to rush through emergency legislation after high court ruling

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Home affairs minister says it’s ‘garbage’ that legislation could completely reverse high court decision that led to 81 leaving immigration detention

Labor is set to rush through emergency legislation this week to deal with the fallout of the high court’s decision that indefinite immigration detention is unlawful.

The move follows demands by the Coalition that parliament “should not rise” until legislation is passed, upping pressure on the government by demanding a response even before the high court gives its full reasons.

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Eighty people already freed from Australia’s immigration detention since landmark high court ruling

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Minister seeks to allay community concern about releases but admits ‘full ramifications’ of decision yet to be determined

The immigration minister has revealed that 80 people have so far been released from immigration detention since the high court ruled it is unlawful to hold those with no realistic prospect of deportation.

On Monday Andrew Giles sought to allay community concern about the releases, which have included Malaysian hitman Sirul Azhar Umar, by saying “all [80] are on appropriate visa conditions” including regular reporting.

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Documents reveal details about the 92 people facing release from indefinite immigration detention in Australia

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Exclusive: document tendered in high court shows half a dozen have been in detention for more than a decade

More than half of the 92 people in immigration detention the Australian government warned it would have to release if it lost a landmark high court decision had their visas cancelled by ministers due to serious concerns about criminality.

A document tendered in the high court, seen by Guardian Australia, reveals the majority (78) are owed protection, including citizens of war-torn or authoritarian countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Sudan. Half a dozen have been in detention for over a decade.

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The standfirst of this story was updated on 10 November 2023 to clarify the number held in detention for more than a decade was six not 46.

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Australia has no legal obligation to repatriate 31 women and children held in Syrian camp, court rules

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Most of the Australians have been held in the Roj detention camp in north-east Syria for four years

The federal government does not have a legal obligation to repatriate 31 Australian women and children who have been forcibly held in a Syrian detention camp for four years, a court has ruled.

The Australians are the wives, widows and children of slain or jailed Islamic State fighters. Most have been held in the squalid Roj detention camp in north-east Syria for four years. None have been charged with a crime or currently face a warrant for arrest.

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Judges to be protected against civil lawsuits after Salvatore Vasta sued over wrongful imprisonment

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Australian government to grant federal circuit court and family court judges the same protections as other commonwealth judges under new legislation

The federal government is preparing to introduce reforms granting greater protections to inferior court judges after a landmark case in which a wrongfully imprisoned man successfully sued Salvatore Vasta.

Vasta, a judge in the federal circuit court, was successfully sued this year by a man who he falsely imprisoned during a routine property dispute after a series of “serious and fundamental errors” and “gross and obvious irregularity of procedure”.

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Australia’s new UN counter-terror chief fears world repeating ‘same mistakes’ of the past in Israel-Gaza conflict

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Prof Ben Saul cautions that exceeding the limits of international law only breeds extremism and discontent, and is no recipe for peace

As he takes office as the UN’s sole special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism this week, Prof Ben Saul’s purview is dominated by what he views as one serious, though not unprecedented, “mistake”: countering terrorism with military might.

“Unfortunately, when 9/11 came, the same kind of pressure to take the gloves off became manifest pretty quickly,” says the incoming monitor and Challis chair of international law at the University of Sydney, as he reflects upon Israel’s siege of Gaza in response to Hamas’s attacks on 7 October.

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Paul Keating says voice referendum was ‘wrong fight’ and has ‘ruined the game’ for a treaty

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Exclusive: Former PM accuses John Howard and Tony Abbott of ‘outrageously and wilfully misinterpreting’ result in attempt to return to ‘great assimilation project’

Indigenous Australians were always “fighting the wrong fight” with a voice to parliament, the former prime minister Paul Keating has said, and the failure of the referendum has now “ruined the game” for a treaty that could have properly acknowledged prior Indigenous ownership and dispossession.

In an interview with Guardian Australia, Keating accused the former Liberal prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott, and the historian Geoffrey Blainey, of “outrageously and wilfully misinterpreting” the referendum result in an attempt to return to “the great assimilation project”.

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How Bruce Lehrmann’s media interviews cost him his anonymity in Toowoomba rape case

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The ‘high-profile man’ has been identified after TV appearances about the Brittany Higgins case came back to burn him

“Let’s light some fires,” said Bruce Lehrmann in June, during the first of his two-part “bombshell” interviews on Channel Seven’s flagship Spotlight program.

“Everything needs to be out there, in the open, so people can assess this for what it is.”

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ACT moves to punish jurors who conduct their own research during trials

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Attorney general says those in breach of proposed new rules could face up to two years in jail

The Australian Capital Territory will introduce new laws punishing jurors who conduct their own research.

Last year, the trial of Bruce Lehrmann collapsed in the ACT supreme court after a juror conducted their own research and brought in material from outside the courtroom.

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Indigenous groups say voice referendum ‘unleashed a tsunami of racism’

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Yes supporters break week of silence by stating 14 October result was so mean-spirited it would remain ‘unbelievable and appalling’ for decades

Indigenous groups who supported the voice campaign have broken their week of silence to express shock and grief at last Saturday’s result, accusing Australians who voted no of committing “a shameful act whether knowingly or not”.

The 12-point statement – issued on Sunday evening and described as being the “collective insights and views of a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, community members and organisations who supported yes” – said Australia had chosen “to make itself less liberal and less democratic” by voting no at the 14 October referendum.

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Defence whistleblower David McBride makes last-ditch request to attorney general to end prosecution

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Former military lawyer’s legal team warns public has made its ‘disapproval of the continued prosecution abundantly clear’

David McBride’s legal team has made a last-ditch request to the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, to intervene and end his prosecution, warning the public had made their “disapproval of the continued prosecution abundantly clear”.

McBride, a former military lawyer, is facing trial in the ACT courts next month for his alleged leaking of documents to the ABC, which were used to produce a series of articles exposing alleged war crimes by Australian troops.

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Australians told ‘do not travel’ to Lebanon – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

No move on paying super to people on paid parental leave

But so far, the government has not moved on paying superannuation to parents (mostly women) on paid parental leave.

Super, of course, is really important and it’s something we would very much like to look to in the future when the budget can afford it. But this is a very big step forward, the current arrangements, but we’ll continue to look around superannuation into the future and consider it in each budget context.

I think with the reserved period as well, we’re going to see an increase in shared care, both parents taking some time out, which is really, really important if we want to get a more equal burden of, you know, of that share of care.

So that is really important as well.

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Australian businessman being used as ‘guinea pig’ for reckless foreign interference charge, lawyers say

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Attorney general still yet to consent to Alexander Csergo’s prosecution with never-before-proven charge as time in custody exceeds six months

More than six months after Sydney businessman Alexander Csergo was arrested on allegations he was providing sensitive material to Chinese agents, Australia’s attorney general has still not consented to his prosecution.

Lawyers for Csergo say he is being used as a “guinea pig” on a never-before-proven charge, and will seek to have him released on bail after prosecutors secured more time to confirm the charge against him.

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