The Defence of Mental Illness in New South Wales
A New South Wales man who killed his baby girl by throwing her into the Tweed River has been found not guilty of murder by reason of mental illness. Justice Helen Wilson said in her special verdict in the Supreme...
Calls for Police Officers to Stop Strip-Searching Kids
In the past year, NSW police officers have strip-searched 96 children and more than 20 percent of them were Indigenous. In one case, the child was only 11 years old. New figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws also show...
Freeing the Refugees Will Free Our Nation: Craig Foster Calls Game Over
Former Socceroo and current human rights campaigner Craig Foster and NRL star Sonny Bill Williams were down in Canberra last week to present federal parliament with a petition calling on the government to accept New Zealand’s offer to resettle refugees...
Strip Searching Women is Routine in Australia
Australians were justifiably outraged when they learnt last week that dozens of women - including thirteen citizens of this country -were taken off a Sydney-bound plane sitting on the tarmac at the international airport in Doha, capital of Qatar, and...
Legalising Cannabis: New Zealand’s Referendum Setback Isn’t the End
Cannabis advocates across the globe were left gobsmacked last Friday, when the preliminary results of New Zealand’s national cannabis referendum turned up a vote against legalising the comparatively innocuous drug, with 53 percent of those polled and counted voting “no”....
AFP Backs Down on Prosecuting Journalist Over ‘Afghan Files’
After months of speculation, the AFP has confirmed that it will not be charging ABC journalist Dan Oakes in relation to reports of atrocities committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, but so far remains intent on prosecuting his source, former...
Sydney Criminal Lawyers Criminal Law Scholarship 2020
Law students in their penultimate or final year of studies are being encouraged to apply for the Sydney Criminal Lawyers annual scholarship. The Sydney Criminal Lawyers Criminal Law Scholarship, which was awarded for the first time in 2019, is intended...
Legalising Cannabis Would Assist Australia Out of Its Deep Recession
Australia is going through its greatest economic recession since the Great Depression. The Australian Bureau of Statistics released figures in early September that showed over the 12 months to June the economy had contracted by 6.3 percent. The downturn was...
Should a Regulated Cannabis Market be Introduced in Australia?
Preliminary results from the New Zealand referendum on cannabis legalisation indicate strong opposition to the reform. The results show just over half (53%) of voters rejected proposed changes which would have allowed the legal possession and sale of cannabis products,...
“A Massive Victory”: Democracy Is Essential’s Eleanor Morley on Lifting the Protest Ban
As NSW police officers began picking up Sydney University students non-violently protesting and, at a distance, hurling them onto the footpath, it was quite clear that something had gotten out of hand. And it seems that state authorities finally agreed....
