The 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 More
This 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 More
The Folbigg Pardon highlights the necessity to establish a national Criminal Cases Review Commission in Australia.
Read More
We 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 More
The 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 More
Restrictions on electoral expenditure are akin to the rules of debate in a meeting which restricts the length of speeches and provide for rights of reply. In the context of political speech, the restrictions are essential to fairness, in that the arms race between various political players is continuously increasing the cost of elections, which results in an increasing number of people being excluded from the political process. Capping expenditure would also help to create closer financial equality between candidates at elections
Read More
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
We start from the premise that prisoners including those on probation, parole or other post detention supervised release, do not have the same privacy rights as ordinary citizens, but they are not stripped of their entire right to privacy
Read More
The Council maintains its position that the advancement of women’s equality and protecting them from violence cannot come at the expense of fundamental legal principles and arrangements designed to protect the liberty of everyone
Read More
It is this Council’s position that the monitoring role by the CCC is ineffective both in respect of individual cases and in dealing with trends in relation to complaints against police. While high level corruption or other serious police offending is investigated and prosecuted from time to time by the CCC all other cases are handed back to the QPS with a so-called monitoring role by the CCC. It is submitted that Queensland should adopt the New South Wales procedure for investigating complaints against police namely that there should be a standalone body separate from the QPS and the CCC to investigate complaints against Police.
Read More
Civil Liberties Council Vice-President Terry O’Gorman said the Police Minister has apparently decided to join in the Queensland Opposition’s ‘attack the Judges’ strategy as opening shots are fired in the Queensland State Election due in October this year.
Read More
The Council supports a subjectivist approach to the criminal law. Subjectivism relies on the notion that individuals can be considered culpable for harm only where they were at the material time aware of the risk of causing that harm, and thus were able to avoid it. This means that it is important that the defendant voluntarily causes the outcome, either by consciously running the risk of that outcome or by actually intending it.
Read More
Domestic and family violence is an ongoing scourge in our community. We do not think it necessary to repeat what is already well-known about the level of family and domestic violence and the harm that it does. These statistics are in any event, well summarised in the discussion paper.
However from a Civil Liberties point of view whilst the prevention of harm is a necessary condition for government to take action it is not a sufficient condition.
ln taking action to protect members of the community from harm, the state has to have regard to the
rights and liberties of other individuals. ln particular, before interfering with the rights and liberties of others it is that fundamental that the State demonstrates that the proposed measure will be effective at protecting the members of the community it is intended to protect.
The Bill undermines the principled asymmetry which is at the heart of the criminal justice system. That principle reflects the proposition that the State with all its resources and powers should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual of an alleged offence.
Read More
The NSW Ombudsman in a report released in September this year after a 2 year inquiry found no evidence that the use of sniffer dogs disrupted street dealing in any sustained fashion. The evidence also showed that the use of police sniffer dogs didn’t reduce drug related crime. Nor did their use lead to any increase in perceptions of public safety.
Read More
The Council takes the view that nude beaches should be permitted so long as they are in secluded areas and are known and clearly marked as nude beaches. If necessary, the State Government or relevant local councils should take steps to designate nude beaches and to mark and publicise them appropriatel
Read More
Annual report of the President delivered at the Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 15 March 1995
Read More