High Court unanimously strips away people’s right to face factual charges

The High Court has unanimously sided with the Establishment in validating provisions of the Criminal Organisation Act 2009 (Q) so that the Finks bikies can be nobbled.

In doing so, the High Court has nibbled away at the rights of all the rest of us.

States are writing new, over-arching laws to rein in the selling of drugs and purveying of violence by bikie gangs because police are incapable of using existing criminal laws to put criminal bikies behind bars. Instead of governments demanding better performance from their police forces, police are requiring MPs to write new laws which take away the rights of all citizens just to target a few people, the bikies.

The High Court has found that it’s OK for the Supreme Court of Queensland to rely on secret "criminal intelligence" to declare an organisation to be "criminal” – that’s any organisation, not just bikie groups. The High Court held that the provisions were “not inconsistent with the institutional integrity of the Supreme Court”.

That, of course, is a legal nonsense. The decision proves that all High Court judges can be wrong in unison in plumping for a new status quo.

The decision opens the way for police to target groups they don’t like: first, the bikies; next, juvenile gangs; maybe Aboriginal groups after that; perhaps known dissenters like social activists next; and then, of course, when they come for the group you’re a member of, no-one is left to defend you. Martin Niemoller said it well last century: http://tiny.cc/p36wtw

The High Court seems to think that using secret “intelligence” – hearsay, scuttlebutt, innuendo, gossip – which the bikies or any other group can’t know about, and therefore can’t rebut, is OK. There’s no need for facts, or evidence...mere “intelligence” is now enough for any organisation and its people to be declared “criminal”.

“Intelligence” is not fact, is not evidence: if it were, it would be called “fact” or “evidence”. The High Court of Australia has effectively lowered the bar of the rule of law throughout Australia, This decision will have sweeping impacts at every level, from magistrates’ courts through supreme courts to decisions of the High Court in future. It is a downwards slide in the upwards ‘progress’ of justice.

The High Court held that “while the provisions may depart from the usual incidents of procedure and judicial process, the Supreme Court nonetheless retains its capacity to act fairly and impartially”. The HIgh Court held that “the provisions do not impair the essential characteristics of the Supreme Court, or its continued institutional integrity”.

What a cop out, literally.

Case: Assistant Commissioner Michael James Condon v Pompano Pty Ltd & Anor

http://www.hcourt.gov.au

Civili Liberties Australia