Castan Centre for Human Rights Law

Category: Auslaw

  • ASIO Security Assessments can now be reviewed, but not by the courts

    By Adam Fletcher The Government announced this week that it has chosen former Federal Court Judge Margaret Stone to be the Independent Reviewer for Adverse Security Assessments. Justice Stone is the second Independent Reviewer appointed by the Government, following the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor appointed in April last year. Obviously the roles differ, but they…

  • Torture Inc: how far do corporate interests stretch when human rights are at stake?

    By Joanna Kyriakakis Imagine the following hypothetical. An Iranian company secretly supplies poison gas to the current Syrian regime in order to kill tens of thousands of Kurdish citizens. And imagine that some of the victims of the resulting gas attacks escape and seek asylum in the United States. Imagine also that the Iranian company…

  • M47 Case – High Court Rules that Refusal of Refugee Protection is not ASIO’s Job

    By Adam Fletcher On Friday the High Court handed down its decision in the case of Plaintiff M47/2012 v Director-General of Security and Others. The full decision is dense and complex, and runs to more than 130 printed pages, but the High Court has a useful summary on its website. One of the issues in…

  • Alan Jones campaign: is it censorship?

    In light of the ongoing Alan Jones saga, which saw him broadcast today ad-free, I put together this Storify about the possible free speech implications of campaigns to get Jones off the air. Storify is a way to curate and aggregate social media into larger narratives. You can view the original Storify post here. “Free…

  • In Defence of Alan Jones

    In defence of Alan Jones By Sarah Joseph, Monash University AAP Image/Warren Clarke So, Sydney shock-jock Alan Jones has disgraced himself with his appallingly tasteless and hurtful comment, recorded at a recent Sydney University Liberal club dinner, that the late John Gillard “died of shame” over his daughter Julia. He compounded the ignominy with his…

  • Freedom of Speech Going Backwards in Vietnam

    By Andrew Nguyen On September 24, 2012 — exactly 30 years to the day after Vietnam became a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — three Vietnamese bloggers were convicted and sentenced to lengthy jail terms for “conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” after a short trial that lasted only a…