Strip Searches: State-Perpetrated Sexual Acts
NSW police use of strip searches hasn’t just risen in recent times, but almost become routine. Over the four years ending in June 2018, its general use rose by 47 percent, while last year, 11 percent of persons in respect...
#MeToo Founder Sued for Defamation
New York based French Journalist Sandra Muller is widely credited for inspiring hundreds of other women in that nation to report being sexually harassed, after she published a Tweet accusing French television executive Eric Brion of making offensive comments towards...
Passive Smoking Defence Exposes Flawed Drug Driving Regime
Magistrate David Heilpern has delivered yet another landmark ruling that reveals the shonky logic underlying the drug driving regime in NSW. The Lismore magistrate accepted last month that a woman tested positive to cannabis because of passive smoking. Nicole Spackman...
Drug Dogs Are No Deterrent & Increase the Harm: An Interview With RMIT’s Dr Peta Malins
These days, commuters alighting the train of an early evening at Sydney’s Central station can be confronted by police with drug dogs. And if a canine makes an indication about one of the citizens on the platform, that individual can...
Mother Imprisoned for Giving Her Kids Sleeping Tablets
An Adelaide mother who gave her children chocolate milk laced with sleeping tablets has been sentenced to a full term of three years in prison with a non-parole period of 15 months. The 47-year old mother of four, whose name...
Keeping Religion Out of Politics: An Interview With the National Secular Lobby’s Peter Monk
As the campaign for marriage equality grew stronger, the debate on religious freedoms rose to the fore, as the state agreeing to grant some in the community the same human rights as others, seemed to irk a number of people...
Continuing Detention Orders in New South Wales
An application has been made to extend the prison sentence of a convicted killer and child sex offender beyond the expiry of his full term of imprisonment. 69-year old former babysitter and gardener Michael Anthony Guider was sentenced to two...
Prisons Should Focus on Treatment Rather than Punishment
A study by researchers from the University of Exeter in England has found that assessing new prison inmates for traumatic brain injury (TBI) and treating those affected can significantly reduce their likelihood of future offending. Source and effect of TBI...
“We Must Speak Out”: Lawyers Are Obliged to Speak Out About Human Rights
Lawyers stand in a unique position. Their training and practice gives them a keen awareness of how the law functions in our daily lives, as well as the likely impacts of any newly-enacted or amended laws. Often, at times when...
Do I Have to Give My Fingerprints if Directed by My Employer?
Who has the right to your biometric data? This is the question that was posed to the Fair Work Tribunal when a worker was fired for not giving his fingerprint to his employer. When his employer demanded his fingerprint as...
