The Massacres That Led to Tighter Gun Control in Australia
The National Firearms Agreement (NFA) established tighter firearm control laws back in 1996. This led Australian gun laws to become the envy many other countries. But over the following twenty years, these laws have slowly been eroded. And this has much...
Death of Elijah Doughty: No Justice for Indigenous People
The verdict in the trial of the Kalgoorlie man who fatally ran over Elijah Doughty in August last year, has laid bare the inherent racism in the Australian criminal justice system. Last Friday, the 56-year-old non-Indigenous man - whose identity has...
NSW Court Confirms Gittany Murder Conviction
At 10am on 30 July 2011, ABC journalist Joshua Rathmell was on his usual route to work. He was walking through the southern end of Hyde Park in Sydney’s CBD, when he heard “deranged screaming” from a male voice. The journalist...
Peter Dutton: A Law Unto Himself
Former Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson has warned that Peter Dutton’s growing control over Australian deportation laws is removing important oversight mechanisms offered by the courts and parliament – threatening the separation of powers between the state and judiciary. Before last October,...
Man Appeals to High Court After Prosecution Expert is Discredited
In October 1972, Frits Van Beelan was convicted of murdering 15-year old Deborah Leach in Adelaide’s north-west, and sentenced to death. He successfully appealed the conviction, but a jury once again found him guilty in July 1973 after a retrial,...
Silk Road Creator’s Life Sentence Fails to Deter Online Drug Transactions
Ross Ulbricht, founder of the online drug marketplace Silk Road, had his life sentence confirmed by a US Federal appeals court on May 31. Mr Ulbricht, known online as Dread Pirate Roberts, created the site in 2011. In its heyday, Silk Road...
“Free My Father”: An Interview with Jewher Ilham
On September 23 2014, peaceful Uyghur rights advocate Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Xinjiang People’s High Court in western China on separatism charges. The two-day trial was condemned as “grossly unfair” by human rights activists around the world....
Child Sex Offender Cleared to Become a Lawyer
A former male escort who pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor has won the right to apply for admission as a lawyer. The law graduate, known only as KMB, successfully appealed a decision by the Queensland Legal Practitioner Admissions...
RIP Government Accountability in Australia: A Privacy Guide for Journalists
With the scope of online and telecommunications surveillance today, it seems we’re very much living in an Orwellian age. Last week, the complete version of the Australian government’s mandatory metadata regime came into effect. Although the data retention laws were enacted on October 13,...
Prosecutors Want More Prison Time for Aussie Woman Who Killed Indonesian Policeman
New South Wales mother of two Sara Connor is on tenterhooks now that the Denpasar Prosecutions Office has announced it will lodge an appeal against her prison sentence, arguing it is manifestly inadequate. Ms Connor was sentenced to four years...