It was pointed out to me last night that I had missed Mr Gary Lee-Rogers from my list of serving AFP/APS officers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for insisting…
“A State cannot claim to be operating under the rule of law unless laws are administered fairly, rationally, predictably, consistently and impartially.” (Chief Justice Spigelman, as he then was, in…
I’m writing this post in response to some comments that have been left on Blak and Black over the last week or so. The comments are interesting from a number…
I have borrowed the title from Michael Stolleis' oxymoronically titled book Justice within Injustice which is about, oxymoronically, justice in the Third Reich. After having read Stolleis' essays, in which…
In the 1960s Donald Horne observed, "Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck." This observation was followed in the 1990s by Paul Keating when…
In 1896 J. B. Moore, with what turned out to be prophetic insight, drew attention to the possibility of the immigration laws of the United States being utilised for the…
The following is a letter I received from a reader of Blak and Black and the Fiji Sun, talking about his experiences as a Pakistani/Australian living in Australia’s Capital, Canberra: Dear…
Ah, Sam, you have really got up my nose. And given that smell contributes roughly seventy percent to taste, I can only say you’ve put me off my food! How…
Racism, and in particular anti-black racism, is a part of our community’s psyche. A significant segment of our community holds overtly racist views. A much larger segment subconsciously operates on…
He is wizened. Lines mark a face that has felt the sun’s warming rays and burning beams, eyes see the land that holds his people’s Dreams, ears hear the stories…
In fact, the worst offender of institutionalised discrimination and marginalisation of Aboriginal people is the government.—Neil Gillespie, head of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement Inc, South Australia ('Poor health, racism…
97 Quite rightly, the accused regarded ASIO and the AFP as arms of the state. He quite rightly assumed that they were acting together. The notion that he would be…
In essence criminal law theory is based on the notion of personal responsibility; people are punished for their crimes because they could have chosen not to commit them. The choice…
The same sentencing principles are to be applied, of course, in every case, irrespective of the identity of a particular offender or his membership of an ethnic or other group.…
"The pattern from the 1980s right through to Haneef is a culture of obsessive secrecy... where the AFP's major objective has been to look good whilst at the same time…
Bakchos has asked me to write a post for Blak and Black about what has come to be known in the United States as Modern Racism a concept which I…
21) After coffee was served Mr and Mrs King [i] and I were discussing Mrs (name removed on legal advice) dog Sooty and all of his aliments when a dark…
Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. George Orwell. Why have there been no terrorist…
Chinese mafia groups have infiltrated and corrupted the highest levels of Papua New Guinea’s police force, crippling the struggling nation’s attempts to tackle its law-and-order crisis and posing a potential…
Well thank god for that! Like all good rats, the king of spin is the first to abandon the sinking ship of state the Australian Capital Territory. Yes, strictly speaking…