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We are particularly troubled by the objectives apparently underpinning the legislation, including exclusion of entire nations from migration to Australia, further criminalisation and exposure to imprisonment and detention of people seeking safety in Australia, and circumvention of the impact of a prospective High Court decision regarding unlawful administrative detention.
Read MoreThe Premier is no better than previous LNP Premier Campbell Newman when he attacks Judges for cheap political gain in order to deal with the current law and order public stoush.
Read More“The Premier’s suggestion that Magistrates’ behaviour should be changed when he full well knows it is his Government’s policy as reflected in Queensland’s Youth Justice Act that the law is as pronounced by Magistrate Power reflects the Premier’s weak and unprincipled repetitive attacks on Queensland’s Judiciary”, Mr O’Gorman said
Read MoreMost persistent offenders acquire a criminal record, so one option is to increase the rate at which we imprison recidivist juvenile offenders. Even the most optimistic research to date suggests that incapacitation is not a very cost-effective way of reducing juvenile crime. The money we spend incarcerating juvenile offenders would, in many circumstances, be better spent treating or trying to rehabilitate them. There is good evidence that treatment for drug dependence is an effective way of reducing re-offending. There is also good evidence, despite earlier suggestions to the contrary, that it is possible to rehabilitate re-offenders using methods such as conferencing, cognitive behavioural therapy or training in basic life skills.
Read MoreIf the Parole Board is being described as broken for victims’ families it is even more broken for prisoners who have done all required rehabilitation programs but who languish in jail often for many months after their parole eligibility dates because of prisoners being unable to obtain parole accommodation.
Read MoreThe rule against double jeopardy is not a rule designed to protect the guilty but to protect the innocent.
Read MoreQCCL President Michael Cope said today, “The rule against double jeopardy is not a rule designed to protect the guilty but to protect the innocent.”
Read MoreThe presumption of innocence dictates that the State has no greater obligation to protect its citizens from a person who has been released from custody than it has to protect its citizens from any other member of the public.
Read MoreThe issue is how do we meet the legitimate aims of this legislation whilst protecting the fundamental liberty rights at stake in the criminal justice process.
Read MoreWhy is the government indulging in this reprehensible behaviour? Because it is trying to arrest its way out of the youth crime problem. The Council accepts that there is a youth crime problem. However, this problem cannot be solved by arresting and detainig more children”
Read MoreMr O’Gorman said there is clearly a problem with a cohort of juveniles committing car thefts and violent crime but attacking Judges and Magistrates who cannot defend themselves publicly is a cheap and easy political stunt.
Read MoreThis legislation was introduced in 2004 at the peak of concerns about terrorism. Since then, we have learned that the law inappropriately prioritizes the secrecy of national security information over the administration of justice
Read MoreThe Folbigg Pardon highlights the necessity to establish a national Criminal Cases Review Commission in Australia.
Read MoreThis broad definition of ‘information’ and over-classification of what amounts to ‘national security information’ has serious implications. Anything that could fall within these definitions could be withheld from the defendant (or, in civil proceedings, withheld from one party[1]), which relates to issues of due process discussed above. These broad definitions and scope of the Act increased the encroachment of the executive on due process and a right to a fair trial. As a result, the executive is given ‘enormous scope for unwarranted interference in the administration of justice’
Read MoreWe remain of the view that you cannot end racism and other pernicious ideas by censorship and policing. What needs to be done is to focus on addressing the root causes of why some people are attracted to such ideologies in the first place, including social isolation, growing economic insecurity and mistrust in government and the media.
Read MoreThe Collaery, McBride and Boyle cases have to be seen as part of a new trend whereby evidence is admitted into court and is available to one side (the prosecution, in criminal matters) but not to the other even though that evidence may be used against them. The circumstances in which this evidence is selectively admitted is much broader than the previous public interest immunity exception placed on national security. Much leeway is being granted to the Executive to exclude evidence from scrutiny
Read MoreIt is this nightmare we have come to discuss today in the form of the use of ‘AI’ to make decisions that could impact a person’s access to benefits or services, or could be used to make a judgement about whether or not they are law abiding
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Why haven’t the guideline judgment provisions of the Queensland Penalties and Sentencing Act been used by the Premier and the Police Minister to ask the Appeal Court to remedy supposedly soft sentences by Magistrates?
Read More“Fortunately, Mr Sofronoff found it most unlikely that any innocent people have been wrongly convicted as a result of the lab failures. However, the UK Commission has variously estimated that between two to five percent of the British prison population at any given time are victims of miscarriages of justice. We see no reason why that would not be the case here.”
Read More“The fact that people who complain that they are the victims of sexual offences are given lifelong anonymity and under the Attorney-General’s proposal people merely accused of such offences will be named shows how the balance between protecting the rights of the accuser and the accused is being so wrongly and unfairly skewed towards the accuser”, Mr O’Gorman said.
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