Are anti-terrorism laws beginning to quietly unravel?

Perhaps countries like Australia, who post-9/11 rushed headlong into drafting draconian anti-terrorism legislation, will now think again about the troublesome law created and the impact this has on the health of individuals, well being of families and justice within society.

The European Commission of Human Rights issued this media release last Thursday concerning the application of 11 individuals (six of Algerian nationality; four respectively, of French, Jordanian, Moroccan and Tunisian nationality; and, one, born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, being stateless).

Although compensation mentioned is relatively small, it represents another step in addressing the issue of bad law.

The European Court of Human Rights has today delivered at a public hearing its Grand Chamber judgment¹ in the case of A. and Others v. the United Kingdom (application no. 3455/05).

The case concerned the applicants' complaints that they were detained in high security conditions under a statutory scheme which permitted the indefinite detention of non-nationals certified by the Secretary of State as suspected of involvement in terrorism.

The Court held unanimously that there had been:

· no violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) taken alone or in conjunction with Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights in respect of all the applicants, except the Moroccan applicant whose complaints under these articles were declared inadmissible;

· a violation of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) of the Convention in respect of all the applicants, except the Moroccan and French applicants who had elected to leave the United Kingdom, since it could not be said that the applicants were detained with a view to deportation and since, as the House of Lords had found, the derogating measures which permitted their indefinite detention on suspicion of terrorism discriminated unjustifiably between nationals and non-nationals;

· a violation of Article 5 § 4 (right to have lawfulness of detention decided by a court) in respect of two of the Algerian applicants, the stateless and Tunisian applicants, because they had not been able effectively to challenge the allegations against them; and,

· a violation of Article 5 § 5 in respect of all the applicants, except the Moroccan and French applicants, on account of the lack of an enforceable right to compensation for the above violations.

The Court made awards under Article 41 (just satisfaction) which were substantially lower than those which it had made in past cases of unlawful detention, in view of the fact that the detention scheme was devised in the face of a public emergency and as an attempt to reconcile the need to protect the United Kingdom public against terrorism with the obligation not to send the applicants back to countries where they faced a real risk of ill-treatment. The Court therefore awarded, to the six Algerian applicants 3,400 euros (EUR), EUR 3,900, EUR 3,800, EUR 3,400, EUR 2,500 and EUR 1,700, respectively; to the stateless and Tunisian applicants EUR 3,900, each; and to the Jordanian applicant, EUR 2,800. The applicants were jointly awarded EUR 60,000 for legal costs. (The judgment is available in English and French.)

Full copy of summary here.

Fairies union flies to the rescue?

Bet Crickey had fun typing this one:

"Production on the childrens' television series Fairies, which airs on Channel Seven, has halted. The series is filmed in Adelaide, it follows the adventures of fairies Harmony, Rhapsody and their magical friends. It was meant to go back into production last week but when the producers got wind that the fairies wanted a union agreement production was halted. The fairies' union is taking legal action.

I'm clapping for Tinkerbelle - how 'bout you?

Terminology matters when you are trying to pick a fight

I have seen a number of amusing comments of late attached to posts concerning the nature of 'blogging' or the content of specific blogs. Some of these observations have been marred by confusing word use.

As Meg Pickard created a nice definition table some time back, I though I would post it here for the edification of the totally confused.

Clean up Australia Day 1st March 2009

It's Clean Up Australia Day on Sunday 1st March 2009 and up and down the NSW North Coast people are starting to organise their participation in keeping our little patch of paradise environmentally sound.

So if you are interested, go to Cleanup.org and look for a place nearby where locals will be gathering to volunteer for a worthwhile working bee that weekend.

Another low-life email scam

In our electronic global village it won't be long before this email surfaces again in Australia.

According to Network World on Monday:
"You've been let go. Click here to register for severance pay. " With the economy in the state it is in now, people are afraid for their jobs and criminals are taking advantage of that fear, said Rubinoff. A common tactic includes sending an email to employees that looks like it is from the employer. The message appears to relay news that requires a quick response.
"It can be an email that appears to be from HR that says: 'You have been let go due to a layoff. If you wish to register for severance please register here,' and includes a malicious link."
No one wants to be the person that causes problems in this economy, so any email that appears to be from an employer will likely elicit a response, noted Rubinoff. Lares' Nickerson has also seen cons that use fake employer emails.
"It might say, 'In an effort to cut costs, we are sending W-2 forms electronically this year,'" said Nickerson"
* Eight other scams are here.

Internet charges: Court hands Berlin second warning

Court hands Berlin second warning
The Daily Examiner, 20th February 2009













Update:
According to The Daily Examiner on 13 May 2009:

Poor, poor Malcolm has the leadership blues...

It has been a hard few days for the Leader of the Liberal Party and the Loyal Opposition, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull.

He now has Joe Hockey as Shadow-Treasurer and the gaffes have already begun:

"The market has made everyday Australians richer than they have ever been, even with this economic downturn,"

Cory Bernardi showed a stubborn streak and wouldn't publicly bend the knee to his leader.

Tony Abbot decided that single pensioners should continue to go without.

Confirming his view of a fortnight ago:

Of course, pensioners do it tough. And yes, I have never had to live on the pension and would need to change my life in order to do so. Still, is simply increasing the pension necessarily the best way to go given that pensioners in their own home are much better off, in practice, that those that aren’t. There is always a host of worthy causes that taxpayers’ money might be spent on. The question is what’s best at this time. I reckon that spending that improves the economy makes more sense right now, in the bad times, than spending which improves the social infrastructure.

Peter Costello is obviously enjoying the leadership speculation at Malcolm's expense.

Then John Winston Howard gave his leadership the kiss of death by endorsing it.

It must be remembered that Howard endorsed Brendan Nelson in much the same manner just before he lost the top job to Turnbull.

Still, Malcolm can always go home and hideout with his blogging dogs.